The Nordic Asia Podcast

In this recording from a book launch that NIAS arranged together with FREIA (Aalborg University), Researcher Pauline Stoltz and Director of NIAS, Duncan McCargo, discuss her latest book: “Gender, Resistance and Transnational Memories of Violent Conflicts”. In the book, Stoltz analyses the politics of memories of three violent conflicts that took place in Indonesia, covering the period between 1942...

What has been the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international and Japanese NGO communities? How has Japanese humanitarian and development NGOs responded to the crisis both at home and abroad? How did Japanese NPOs step up to help vulnerable communities in the country and provided support in cases when governmental measures were not sufficient or absent? In this episode Silja Keva speaks with...

Art historian Minna Valjakka speaks with Satoko Naito to discuss her concept of Socially Engaged Creativity, which aims to both broaden and complicate the notion of civic participation through art and creativity. The conversation focuses on her research on protests in Hong Kong as well as various forms of urban hacking and environmental art, highlighting the wide range of protagonists that activel...

How did American imperialism affect Thai scholarship? And what does Buddhist cosmology got to do with the Thai royal tours to Burma and the United States in the 1960s? In this fascinating episode, Matthew Phillips talks to Petra Desatova about moving beyond binary readings of Thai history, avoiding existing preconceptions and using images to get a more holistic understanding of the past.

In this episode, Katarzyna J. Cwiertka speaks with Satoko Naito to share her expertise on Japanese food and food packaging. The discussion deals with washoku (“Japanese food”), designated as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2013, as well as the fascinating and interrelated histories of edible meibutsu (noted product of a particular site) and omiyage (souvenir) that developed alongside dome...

In this episode, Hermann Aubié joins Outi Luova to discuss what’s actually at stake with TikTok. While the political storm in the US failed to address the actual concerns with TikTok, this episode looks beyond the headlines and identifies issues that are also highly relevant in the European context.

In this episode Paul Midford joins Henrik Hiim for a conversation about his new book "Overcoming Isolationism: Japan's Leadership in East Asian Security Multilateralism." Based on thousands of pages of declassified documents from Japan's Foreign Ministry and Cabinet Office, and on a quarter of a century of interviews, this book introduces Japan's often overlooked leadership in promoting East Asian...

In this episode, Hermann Aubié talks with Outi Luova about the methods of information control that have been applied by China's party-state since the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak. What were the possible reasons that enabled the party-state's politics to prevent China's infectious disease surveillance and reporting system from working? How does the Communist Party of China try to manage the...

In this podcast, Martin Seeger from the University of Leeds joins Petra Desatova to talk about his recent book Gender and the Path to Awakening: Hidden Histories of Nuns in Modern Thai Buddhism jointly published by Silkworm Books and NIAS Press. Martin shares his insights into how he researched this fascinating topic and how he discovered that an unknown female Buddhist practitioner was the true a...

In this episode, Kristin Eggeling talks to Petra Desatova about her recently published book ‘Nation-Branding in Practice: The Politics of Promoting Sports, Cities and Universities in Kazakhstan and Qatar.’ How do Kazakstan and Qatar brand themselves to the outside world and their own citizens? What lies behind Kazakstan’s re-branding of its capital city Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana)? And how does o...

In this episode, Lucrezia Canzutti talks to Petra Desatova about the lives of ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia: who are these people? How did they end up living in Cambodia? What is their relationship with the Cambodian state? And why are their lives so precarious? Join us for this fascinating talk about ethnicity, citizenship and Cambodian politics.

Since becoming a constitutional monarchy in 1932, Thailand has been governed by twenty different constitutions. Although they all had their own unique features, constitutions from 1997 onwards placed much emphasis on judiciary and elite watchdog agencies as the righteous arbiters of Thai political life. In this podcast, Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang talks to Petra Desatova about this constitutional...

In this episode, Helene Maria Kyed joins Duncan McCargo for a conversation about her upcoming book 'Everyday Justice in Myanmar'. Kyed shares her insights on the project behind the book, and justice and informal resolutions in Myanmar.  Based on a unique collection of ethnographic studies, 'Everyday Justice in Myanmar: Informal Resolutions and State Evasion in a Time of Contested Transition' is th...

For more than 60 years, Malaysian politics was extremely predictable - the same dominant party, UMNO, had remained in power since independence. All that changed in 2018, and with the latest change of government this March, all bets are off. In this podcast, leading Malaysia expert Bridget Welsh of the University of Nottingham's Malaysia campus discusses these fascinating developments with Duncan M...

In this episode, Jyrki Kallio from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs joins Andreas Bøje Forsby from NIAS to talk about Finnish-Chinese relations, which are officially guided by the so-called ‘future-oriented new-type cooperative partnership’. Their wide-ranging conversation covers Chinese investments in Finland, Huawei and 5G technology, the Belt & Road Initiative, and Finland’s posit...

In this episode Björn Jerdén from the Swedish Institute of International Affairs joins Andreas Bøje Forsby from NIAS to talk about Sweden-China relations which have taken a significant downward turn over the past couple of years. The conversation revolves around a number of specific topics that have recently dominated bilateral relations, including the “Gui Minhai” case, the assertive role played...

In this COVID-19 episode that is recorded in India and enlivened with Indian soundscapes, Marjaana Jauhola and Shyam Gadhavi talk about the lockdown in Kachchh district, Gujarat and give voices to farmers and urban poor on their concerns of the impact of COVID-19 on their daily life. A longer video version of the episode is available here https://youtu.be/T0ADjM2avf4

In this episode, Henrik Stålhane Hiim from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs joins Andreas Bøje Forsby from NIAS to discuss recent developments between Norway and China since the normalization of their bilateral relations in late 2016 (after a six years freeze). The conversation addresses topics such as the recent spike in Chinese investments in Norway, the Covid-19 pandemic, the ro...

In this podcast, Allen Hicken of the University of Michigan tells Duncan McCargo all about an exciting comparative exploration of money and machine politics in Southeast Asia. This large Australian-funded project has involved extensive fieldwork over several years in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, looking at everything from village-level vote-buying, to massive government pork-barrel sch...

In this episode, Sirpa Tenhunen and Jelena Salmi talk to Xenia Zeiler about fieldwork experiences, journalistic reporting, and social media debates around the COVID-19 situation in India. With fresh stories from their fieldwork and reviews of journalistic reporting in India, they discuss whether the pandemic might contribute to social and political changes, particularly in favor of migrants, and i...

In this episode of Covid-19 podcasts, Silja Keva talks to Kamila Szczepanska and Yoko Demelius about the impacts of the pandemic in Japan. While the state of emergency has now been lifted, the societal impacts of the pandemic are surfacing: gender inequalities and the vulnerability of homeless and illegal immigrants have been amplified. Tensions between municipal and national administration emerge...

In this episode, anthropologist Dr Megha Amrith joins Adela Brianso to discuss her research in migrant labour and care in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amrith shares her insights on the current migration regimes in Asia and around the world, the undervalued work of nurses and carers and the heritage of colonialism still present today. 

In this wide-ranging podcast conversation, Mikael Mattlin talks to Outi Luova about the impact of COVID-19 on China and the global economy. The COVID-19 crisis may help restructure societies to become more environmentally friendly, but is also boosting the economic role of the state, so seemingly validating China's ways of organising state-economy relations. 

In this podcast Saowanee Alexander talks to Petra Desatova about Thailand’s politically less privileged people: who are they and why do they matter? How do they fight against the state elites? And why did they appropriate derogatory names, such as serfs and red buffaloes, used by the elites? Join us for a fascinating talk about ordinary Thai people, language and politics.

In this podcast, Arild Ruud talks to Duncan McCargo about the humanitarian crisis facing the Rohingya: why did around a million displaced people end up fleeing from Burma to Bangladesh in 2017? What kind of lives are they having in refugee camps in Bangladesh? How come the international community seems largely powerless to address this desperate situation? And what does the future hold for these R...