SEAREG Summer Conference showcases scholarship on Southeast Asia

The Southeast Asia Research Group (SEAREG) 2025 Summer Conference brought together dozens of faculty, post-doctorate scholars, professionals and students for three days in Bangkok in thoughtful discussion and analysis of critical research questions affecting the countries of Southeast Asia.

Hosted by Mahidol University, the conference featured keynote addresses by Danny Quah, the Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics at the National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and Brenda S.A. Yeoh, the Raffles Professor of Social Sciences in the National University of Singapore's Department of Geography. 

In the State of the Region keynote, Quah provided an overview of the economic state of the region and the impact of the U.S.-China rivalry, emphasizing the evolving relationship between economics and geopolitics.

Yeoh, who also serves as the research leader of the Asian Migration Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, addressed the themes of migration and multicultural diversity amid Asia's rapid ageing in her State of the Field address.

As part of its commitment to supporting emerging social scientists studying Southeast Asia, SEAREG held two professionalization workshops during the conference that offered insights and feedback on conducting research that is theoretically informed, analytically sophisticated, and methodologically precise and diverse. 

The conference also featured presentations by the latest cohort of SEAREG Fellows:

• Attawat Assavanadda, University of Hong Kong, "The Tie That Barely Binds: Ethnic Chinese Thais’ Conditional Affinity with the PRC"
• Rune Wriedt Larsen, London School of Economics, "The Organisational Origins of Onset: Communist Civil War in the Philippines and Thailand after the Second World War"
• Yilin Su, University College London, "Fake News Labels and Public Opinion in Nondemocracies: Evidence from Singapore"

Selected twice a year through a competitive process, SEAREG Fellows are exceptional advanced PhD candidates or recent PhD graduates in the social sciences who demonstrate outstanding potential as scholars of Southeast Asia. They present their unpublished work at SEAREG conferences, where they receive feedback from the SEAREG community.

Additional conference highlights included:

• Thematic panels exploring the themes: religion, masculinity and the global politics of democracy promotion; institutional power and policy adaptation in Southeast Asia; and Thai politics, representation and historical reckoning.
• Cultural excursions to the Grand Palace and Jim Thompson House Museum

SEAREG's next conference will be held Dec. 4-6 at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy.

About SEAREG

Established in 2013, the Southeast Asia Research Group (SEAREG) highlights the best new research by young social scientists working on Southeast Asian politics and fosters a network of scholars in political science and allied disciplines who are working at the forefront of Southeast Asian studies. The program is based at the Duke Center for International Development and relies on generous support from the Henry Luce Foundation.