Events

MODERATOR

Prof Tim Bunnell, Asia Research Institute, and Department of Geography, National University of Singapore

PROGRAM

 
ABSTRACT

The 20^th anniversary year of the Asia Research Institute (ARI) provides an opportunity to reflect on urban research that has been carried out at the Institute, and to consider future prospects and priorities. Urban questions undoubtedly remain as important across Asia in 2021 as they were when ARI’s Asian Urbanisms cluster was first established. In addition, the significance of Asia to wider worlds of urbanization – conceptually as well as in empirical or demographic terms – is by now widely acknowledged. However, new developments and approaches to examining them continue to emerge. In the context of the ongoing global pandemic, the past year alone has raised a series of new questions about the urbanizing present and futures to be addressed both within and from Asia.

In this anniversary roundtable event, three former ARI urbanists will share reflections on their own research pathways, and possible ways forward for urban research in the humanities and social sciences. Between them, the three panelists’ experiences encompass a wide range of urban questions, extend across a variety of geographical parts of urban Asia, and include differing degrees of engagement with worlds of policy and praxis. The format of the event is intended to allow plenty of time for discussion, including around questions from members of the audience.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Eli Elinoff is a senior lecturer in Cultural Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington. He is a political and environmental anthropologist with research projects centered in Thailand and Southeast Asia. His work is engaged with questions about citizenship, space, urbanization, aesthetics, infrastructures, architecture, the built environment, and environmental change. He has published work in South East Asia Research, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Contemporary Southeast Asia, and Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Limin Hee is Director of Research at Singapore’s Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC), a nexus and knowledge centre for liveable and sustainable cities, where she focuses on research strategies, content development and international collaborations. CLC research is premised on deep understanding of urban systems and how to derive integrated solutions for cities. She played similar leading research roles at the School of Design and Environment in National University of Singapore, as well as at the Centre for Sustainable Asian Cities and the Asia Research Institute.

Nausheen Anwar is Director of the Karachi Urban Lab. She received her PhD in City and Regional Planning from Columbia University, USA. Nausheen’s work focuses on the politics of urban planning and infrastructural development. She has authored a book: Infrastructure Redux: Crisis, Progress in Industrial Pakistan and Beyond (2015, Palgrave Macmillan), which explores, through detailed cases of Sialkot and Faisalabad in industrializing Punjab, the double-edged narratives of development that frame infrastructure in post-independence Pakistan. Nausheen’s work has appeared in the journals Antipode, Urban Studies, EPW, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, South Asian History and Culture, and Environment & Planning A.

Tim Bunnell is Professor in the Department of Geography and Director of the Asia Research Institute (ARI) at National University of Singapore, where he is also Leader of the Asian Urbanisms cluster. His primary research interest concerns the politics of urbanisation in Southeast Asia, examining both the transformation of cities in that region and urban connections with other parts of the world. His books include From World City to the World in One City: Liverpool through Malay Lives (Wiley, 2016) and Urban Asias: Essays on Futurity Past and Present (Jovis, 2018; co-edited with Daniel P.S. Goh).

ARI20 ANNIVERSARY ROUNDTABLE SERIES

The ARI20 Anniversary Roundtable Series marks the founding of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore in 2001. The series celebrates our current scholarship while exploring how these themes and topics continue to inspire new trajectories of research. The ARI20 Anniversary Roundtable Series concludes with the convening of a final roundtable featuring the Institute’s current research cluster leaders, who will discuss ARI’s role in charting future humanities and social science research on Asia. While the virtual roundtable format arises from pandemic-related necessity, it will enable ARI alumni and partners around the world to join the discussion on the Institute’s research directions and prospects.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this webinar has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to aritm@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the webinar.