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The Nordic Asia Podcast

NIAS and its academic partners

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The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: -Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia) -Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland) -Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania) -Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) -Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland) -Norwegian Network for Asian Studies
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On War & Society

Laurier Centre for the Study of Canada

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From LCMSDS Productions, The On War & Society podcast features interviews with the most prominent historians of war and society. Host Eric Story sits down with his guests to discuss their cutting-edge research, the challenges associated with doing history, and life 'behind the book.'
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What role do China and other Asian countries play in the global amber trade? And, what can we learn about the big challenges of our time by studying amber? In this episode, Kenneth Bo Nielsen talks to Alessandro Rippa about the global flows and significance of this seemingly inconspicuous lump of fossilized tree resin, a material that is at the hea…
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Why did khadi become so central to India’s freedom struggle? How did it evolve into an international trademark – and what does khadi signify in India today? In this episode, Kenneth Bo Nielsen talks to Subhadeep Chowdhury about the political, cultural, and economic importance of khadi, the famous handspun and woven natural fiber cloth that we often…
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What happens if the geoeconomic risks of great power rivalry materialise? What can be done to prevent these potential dangers from unfolding in small open economies, such as Finland and Sweden? More specifically, how can small state preparedness be enhanced to tackle the risks of foreign ownership, supply disruptions and high tech dependencies? How…
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Is Kiribati in the American lake, Indo-Pacific or Chinese Pacific? In this Episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen talks to Rodolfo Maggio, a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki to conceptualize Kiribati as an interstitial island in the Chinese Pacific. Rodolfo Maggio is a social anthropologist of moral and economic values in the Asia-Pacific region…
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In 1998 the phrase “internet addiction” was first used to describe problematic prolonged internet use, and encompassed a wide range of online activities including reading news, connecting in chat rooms, viewing pornography, and gambling. Since then, particular focus has been placed on internet gaming, and in 2022 the World Health Organization’s Int…
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Musicians and community activists in Ghana have raised their voices to increase awareness of the environmental impact of Chinese activities in the country. The chart-topping song “Greedy men” by Stonebwoy directly criticizes Chinese illegal gold mining in the region. On a separate occasion, a community movement compelled the Ghanaian Minister of En…
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Have you ever felt that the grammar of Asian languages does not fit with the framework that we use to describe them? In the late 19th century, Asian grammarians began adapting the European-based grammatical frameworks describing their languages, but this application was not straightforward. In Japan, the question of grammar eventually became entang…
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What does astrology, palm-reading and fortune telling have to do with politics in Thailand, and how can we make sense of these divination practices and their use in Thai politics? Listen to Edoardo Siani and Petra Alderman in this episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast to learn more about divination and the way it was used during the recent student-led…
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One of the eight national dances of India, bharatanatyam, partly originates from the area around Tranquebar. During the time that Tranquebar was a Danish colony, devadasis, women who did service at temples through dance, were patronized by the Thanjavur royal court. In 1623, a Danish–Icelandic soldier routinely observed the devadasis dancing outsid…
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Japan has historically maintained extended periods of isolationist policies and continues to uphold some of the strictest immigration laws in the world today. The country has also long had a tumultuous relationship with non-ethnic Japanese residents, including Taiwanese and Korean nationals who were first forced to become Japanese citizens under im…
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In December 2023, more than five decades of institutionalized Nordic collaboration in the field of Asian studies will come to an end with the closure of NIAS, the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. What has been the impact of NIAS on Nordic research on Asia? What legacy will NIAS leave behind? And how will the closure of the institute impact the sc…
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In 2020, Finland’s sauna culture was added to the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Sauna culture is an integral part of the lives of the majority of the Finnish population. Interestingly, the Finnish style of sauna-going has inspired quite a few i…
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Why do politicians write poems? And what does a politician’s poetry tell us about their leadership? In this episode, a collective of researchers from the University of Oslo discuss these questions by focusing on India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Modi has a highly visible and extremely complex public image. He often appears as a firm and decisi…
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What does Buddhism have to do with harbors? Find out how China is leveraging religion in its foreign policy and why it is a vital part of China's soft power strategy, aligned closely with domestic policies. Learn how Sri Lanka's reception and reproduction of narratives can impact the country's foreign relations and domestic dynamics. Tabita Rosenda…
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How should we understand the emergence of the Global South as a political actor? What is the role of India within this framework? Which challenges and tensions arise from China’s assertiveness in Asia, and how is it reshaping regional dynamics? How is the Indo-Pacific region emerging as a new geopolitical structure with the potential to redefine re…
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Bubble tea, also known as pearl milk tea, boba or tapioca milk tea is a popular drink in Asia. Wherever there is Asian diaspora, such as in the USA, one can find bubble tea as well. Bubble tea is becoming increasingly visible even in European countries where there are relatively smaller Asian communities compared with the situation in the USA. One …
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How do affective sites such as memorials and statues produce political visions, emotions, and opportunities? And how are they used strategically to further particular political projects? In this episode, we discuss these questions with Rahul Ranjan with specific reference to his new book The Political Life of Memory: Birsa Munda in Contemporary Ind…
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Is migration good or bad for development? How does migration affect those who leave and those who stay behind? How are rural and urban livelihoods interconnected in Asian cities? What are the likely main migration trends in Asia the coming decade? And what can you learn from studying the same village for decades? To discuss these diverse questions,…
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How are women represented in Chinese crime films? In what ways do the representation reflect traditional Chinese values and contemporary Chinese social-cultural norms? How did boys’ love culture emerge in China? What is the role of the Chinese state in queer media production and queer culture in China? In a conversation with Joanne Kuai, PhD candid…
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How serious an issue is digital repression in Thailand? Who is behind it? And what effects does it have on Thai people? Listen to Janjira Sombatpoonsiri as she talks to Petra Alderman about this issue in the context of contemporary Thailand and the 2020-2021 student-led protests. Janjira Sombatpoonsiri is an Assistant Professor and Project Leader a…
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How did the first newspaper in Macau come into being? What was the first foreign language newspaper on Chinese soil about? How was the dynamic between the Chinese and Portuguese press in the former Portuguese colony and now China’s Special Administrative Region? Hugo Pinto speaks about A Abelha da China (A Bee from China), the first newspaper in Ma…
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What does civil society look like in Indonesia and Cambodia, and who are civil society elites? In this podcast interview, editors of the recently published NIAS Press edited volume Civil Society Elites. Field Studies from Cambodia and Indonesia, Astrid Norén-Nilsson, Amalinda Savirani and Anders Uhlin dive into the themes of their book, as well as …
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What does a map of Southeast Asia as a pegasus have to do with translation and Southeast Asia? How can we think of translation as anything other than a unidirectional practice of bringing meaning across languages? How can Southeast Asia challenge the way we think about translation? Phrae Chittiphalangsri and Vicente L. Rafael, the editors of the fi…
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Why have issues of human rights become so contentious in Indonesia, 25 years after the much-heralded post-Suharto democratic transition? What kind of role has the Indonesian Foundation of Legal Aid Institutes, or LBH, performed in this field? Should those working on human rights try to work with governments and power-holders, or adopt an opposition…
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In this episode, Kenneth King (University of Edinburgh) & Meera Venkatachalam (University of Mumbai), discuss their recently co-edited volume, India's Development Diplomacy and Soft Power in Africa, published by Boydell and Brewer in 2021. India has understood its relations with Africa within the framework of South-South cooperation, where postcolo…
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Why is Malaysia in need of electoral reform? How can we explain recent changes including the anti-party hopping law and the successful UNDI18 campaign to lower the voting age? And what does the outcome Malaysia's GE15, the November 2022 general election, mean for the health of Malaysian democracy? In this podcast, editors Helen Ting and Donald Horo…
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Did the bloody 1 February 2021 military coup in Myanmar produce an unexpected ‘solidarity dividend’ by unifying opponents of the new regime from a range of ethnic backgrounds and political perspectives? How can political ethnographers continue to study Myanmar without having physical access to the country? Why might it be fruitful to reimagine Myan…
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Why and how has India’s Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, become so adept at appealing to and recruiting people from the lower castes? And what does this mean for Indian politics in the short to medium term? In this episode we are joined by Samantha Agarwal to discuss the rise of Hindu nationalism, focusing on the strategies it deploys to recruit p…
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With Afghanistan once again under Taliban rule and Pakistan reeling under a severe economic and political crisis, the relationship between the neighbouring countries is growing increasingly tense. How can we understand this contentious situation? And, what are the consequences for the civilian population? To discuss these question, and current Afgh…
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In 2023, India surpassed China in numbers of total population and holds the presidency of the prestigious G20, shortly after it overtook the UK as the world’s fifth largest economy in terms of GDP. Simultaneously, various actors are courting India's favour for international policy projects, such as the adoption of ambitious climate targets or peace…
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Why was the May 2023 Thai election such a historic election? What does the surprising Move Forward victory tell us about the state of Thai politics? And what happens next? Duncan McCargo and Ken Lohatepanont join Petra Alderman to discuss the historic Thai vote and the post-election developments. Duncan McCargo is Director of the Nordic Institute o…
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re there ways to tackle pressing social, environmental and economic problems at once? In this episode, Professor Assunta Cuyegkeng from Ateneo de Manilla University in Philippines joins Pilvi Posio to discuss the research and practice of social entrepreneurship that offers potential solutions for building holistic social, economic and also environm…
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The Pacific Rim of Asia – Pacific Asia – is now the world's largest and most cohesive economic region, and China has returned to its center. In this conversation, Julie Yu-Wen Chen, Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Helsinki discusses with Brantly Womack from the University of Virginia about his new book Recentering Pacific Asia: Re…
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Welcome to the fourth NIAS-Korea episode. We invite Dr. Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein to discuss Sweden-North Korea relations. It may seem odd that among the Western countries, Sweden is the one that has maintained friendlier relations with North Korea. For example, Sweden was the first Western country that opened an embassy in Pyongyang, and the em…
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How is urban India changing? And how do communities inhabit and transform India’s new cities and urban spaces? In this episode Kenneth Bo Nielsen is joined by Ritanjan Das to discuss a new book co-authored by Das and Nilotpal Kumar titled The Politics of Community-making in New Urban India: Illiberal Spaces, Illiberal Cities (Routledge, 2023). The …
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How has China’s one-party system dealt with the country’s growing environmental issues? And what implications does its green turn have on people’s everyday realities? Virginie Arantes joins Petra Alderman, associate researcher at NIAS and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Birmingham, to talk about her book China’s Green Consensus: P…
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What is the story behind NIAS Press becoming one of Europe's leading Asian Studies publishers? How have the academic world and scholarly publishing changed in recent years and what can we expect for the future? How in challenging times can scholars maximize the impact of their research? In this week's conversation, NIAS Press editor in chief Gerald…
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On March 11, 2011, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northeastern Japan triggering a massive tsunami and shifting the earth on its axis. Nearly 20,000 residents in the Tōhoku region lost their lives, with many hundreds of thousands more injured, displaced, and left with horrific loss. Dr. Pilvi Posio shares her PhD research based o…
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How might we imagine justice in times of ecological harm? How are human struggles for social justice entangled with the lives of other beings including plants, animals, fungi, and microbes? What is at stake when claims are made about who or what is the subject of justice? These questions and more are explored in this conversation between Terese Gag…
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In Delhi, former street children guide visiting tourists around the streets that they used to inhabit and show how the NGO they work for tries to resocialise the current street children. What social, cultural and economic structures are in the backdrop of slum tourism in Delhi? Why are emotions and personal stories important to understand in slum t…
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Why do very small groups, like the Ahmadiyah sect in Indonesia, become targets of mobilization and repression? How do political entrepreneurs play a role in facilitating violence against such groups? What practical issues should we consider when conducting field research on contentious phenomena? In this episode, Prof. Jessica Soedirgo, an Assistan…
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What does climate change adaptation look like in Bangladesh? And what kind of gendered social landscape does climate change adaptation have to navigate in Bangladesh? Bangladesh is among the countries most at risk from the negative consequences, and often spoken of as ground zero of climate change. In recent years, more attention has been devoted t…
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The small Indian state of Goa has witnessed a veritable land rush over many decades, with shifting state governments, leading politicians, and private investors moving in to acquire large tracts of land for a wide range of projects. But what are the drivers of land grabbing in Goa? And what are the consequences for local communities and the environ…
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Where does the concept of “community” come from? How does it shape the lives of Hindus and Muslims in metropolitan Yangon? And how do these people navigate between their ethno-religious and other cosmopolitan identities? In this episode, Prof. Judith Beyer, a Professor of Social and Political Anthropology at the University of Konstanz, joins Dr. Ma…
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In this episode, we discuss Arve Hansen’s new book Consumption and Vietnam’s New Middle Classes: Societal Transformations and Everyday Life (Springer, 2022). In this book, Hansen studies the dramatic changes in consumption patterns in Vietnam over the past decades, focusing on how everyday life changes in the context of rapid economic development a…
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What can a classroom experiment teach us about how and when we start shaping our ideas of ‘the other’? Can the results from such an experiment help us challenge the ideas and preconceptions that we have on our own as well as other cultures? In this episode, Tyra Orton speaks to Marie Roesgaard about an ongoing project that she is the participant of…
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How is China trying to influence media across Asia and indeed globally? Why has this ambitious project achieved rather mixed results so far? And how should the rest of the world respond? In this episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast, CFR's Josh Kurlantzick talks to NIAS Director Duncan McCargo about his important new book, Beijing's Global Media Offen…
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Are there viable alternatives to the ethnocentric model of nation-state in post-colonial societies? How did the Peranakan, a non-Malay community, imagine a different Malayan nation and strive to materialize it? How might researchers thoroughly investigate the political history of a marginalised group? And do the historical experiences from Malaya o…
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What would happen if microchips suddenly disappeared from our world? From phones to cars, medical equipment to heating units, they are crucial for the safe and smooth functioning of much of society. While they may not actually disappear anytime soon, we have learned from the COVID pandemic about the real and potential consequences of an essential m…
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Why are there so few women from non-elite backgrounds in Sri Lankan politics? What barriers do they face on their pathways to politics? And what can be done to support them? Ramona Vijeyarasa and Nadine Vanniasinkam join Petra Alderman, associate researcher at NIAS and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Birmingham, to talk about non-…
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