Description

The Singapore University of Socieal Sciences proposes a new SEA-based phase of the Southeast Asia Neighborhoods Network (SEANNET), launched in 2016 with an HLF grant to the University of Leiden, International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS) to examine SEA cities from the perspective of neighborhoods. SEANNET 2.0, headquartered at SUSS, will serve as a platform for multidisciplinary, collaborative, community-engaged research, the development of new pedagogical approaches and curricula, and capacity building and resource creation for scholars and institutions working on urban life in SEA.   PI Rita Padawangi (Sociology) observes that urban development in SEA continues to drift away from lived realities in small spaces toward city competitiveness and centralized planning and control. SEANNET 2.0 will involve case studies at 11 sites in 9 countries to investigate how neighborhoods address challenges such as environmental degradation, public health, commodification of space, migration, arts, heritage, and technologization. Teams of local and international faculty and students will conduct research alongside community partners, using a collaborative pedagogy established in SEANNET 1.0 that is experiential, dialogical and ethnographic. These innovative and immersive methods would empower local scholarship to challenge technocratic and large, investment-driven approaches to urban planning.   Through wokshops and other convenings to share methodologies and findings, SUSS, Chiang Mai University (Thailand) and Universitas Airlangga (Indonesia) will serve as institutional mentors for clusters of SEA university partners. Mobility fellowships for research and joint supervision of doctoral students will facilitate training and exchanges across the network, which also includes IIAS, the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale and the Built Environment PhD Program at University of Washington. An online platform for teaching will be developed at SUSS to curate resources developed through the collective. Public engagement activities, designed collaboratively with communities, will broaden audiences for the work.   SUSS is committing $392,000 for the salaries of the PI and other staff coordinators. Additional in-kind and financial contributions will come from IIAS and other network members.   This would be our first LuceSEA grant to a SEAsian institution. The project has potential to influence research paradigms in SEAsian universities, as well as local policy debates, and to strengthen regional connections in urban studies. It would also, we hope, encourage additional applications from the region.