The Nordic Asia Podcast

Does Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida´s new administration represent the true beginning of the “Post-Abe” era for Japan? After the one-year transitional administration of Yoshihide Suga, Kishida was able to win a three-year term as head of the LDP, the premiership, and lower house election in fall 2021. Since then Kishida has proven to be reasonably popular, and is leaving his stamp on Japanese foreign policy, abandoning Abe´s close ties with Russian President Putin with a hardline toward Russia. Domestically Kishida promotes a “New Capitalism” that promises a reduction in income inequality compared to Abenomics.In this episode Kenneth Bo Nielsen is joined by Paul Midford to look at the new Kishida administration and discuss whether it will set Japan on a new course.Paul Midford is professor of political science at Meiji Gakuin University and the author of a recent book on Japan, “Overcoming Isolationism - Japan’s Leadership in East Asian Security Multilateralism”.Kenneth Bo Nielsen is an Associate Professor at the dept. of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and one of the leaders of the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.

Dr. Suvi Rautio, an expert in ethnographic research in China, discusses memory and loss among intellectuals during the Maoist era. Topics include family history, balancing heritage preservation in Dong village, Beijing's urban transformation, and the repercussions of preservation initiatives in China and Finland.

The anti-feminist movement in South Korea is gaining global attention. The story has been covered by many western mainstream news outlets including the New York Times, CNN, and BBC. Is this trend a new trend in South Korea? Where does this anti-feminist idea come from?In this episode, we invite Prof. Ju Hui Judy Han and discuss South Korean feminist history and gender politics. We discuss pre- and post-democratization feminist movements, the new president’s worrisome position on gender issues, and predict the future feminist movements in South Korea. We end our conversation with the conclusion that although there have been many obstacles, we cannot overlook the progress at the grassroots level. If you are interested in learning about South Korean feminist history, join Myunghee Lee for this interview with Judy Han.This is the second episode in the series. The first episode can be found here.About the interviewerMyunghee Lee is a Postdoctoral Fellow at NIAS. She also is a Non-resident Fellow at the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on protest, authoritarian politics, and democratization.About the speakerJu Hui Judy Han is a cultural geographer and assistant professor in Gender Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley, and has previously taught at the University of Toronto in Canada. Her comics and writings about (im)mobilities, faith-based movements, and queer politics have been published in journals such as The Scholar & Feminist Online, Critical Asian Studies, positions: asia critique, Geoforum, and Journal of Korean Studies as well as in several edited books such as Rights Claiming in South Korea (2021), Digital Lives in the Global City (2020), Ethnographies of U.S. Empire (2018), and Territories of Poverty (2015). She is currently working on a book on “queer throughlines” and co-writing another book on protest cultures.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dkTranscripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

How has digital nationalism manifested amid the Covid-19 pandemic in China? How does anti-American sentiment in China feed into the disinformation campaigns in regard to the war on Ukraine? What lessons can we draw from Asian countries' handling of the public health crisis? Florian Schneider, Senior Lecturer in the Politics of Modern China at Leiden University, shares his research on the multiple dimensions of digital nationalism and how it is constructed and manifested in the complexity of digital networks.In his conversation with Joanne Kuai, PhD candidate at Karlstad University, Sweden and affiliated PhD at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Florian Schneider talks about the role that digital media plays in the construction of digital nationalism and how the Chinese state's legitimation mechanism could impact the decoupling of realities in China. He also shares insights from his newly co-edited book Public Health in Asia during the COVID-19 Pandemic (Amsterdam University Press, 2022) with lessons to be learned from how the Asian countries responded to the public health crisis.Florian Schneider is a Senior Lecturer in the Politics of Modern China at Leiden University and the director of the Leiden Asia Centre. He is the managing editor of the academic journal Asiascape: Digital Asia, and the author of Staging China: The Politics of Mass Spectacle (Leiden University Press, 2019) and China's Digital Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2018).The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo. We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dkTranscripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

How does queer life fit into Buddhism and ritual? What role do gay men and trans women play in the practice of spirit mediumship and how do queer spirit mediums mediate between Thailand’s religious fields? How can we understand the increasing numbers of queer spirit mediums across mainland Southeast Asia?Peter A. Jackson and Benjamin Baumann provide important insights into their new book Deities and Divas, Queer Ritual Specialists in Myanmar, Thailand and Beyond (NIAS Press 2021). Deities and Divas is the first book to trace commonalities between queer and religious cultures in Southeast Asia and the West. The book details the very prominent roles that gay men and trans women are playing in the spirit medium cults rapidly growing in Myanmar, Thailand and beyond.Visit the NIAS Press Webshop to find the book.Peter A. Jackson is Emeritus Professor in Thai cultural history at the Australian National University. Over the past four decades, he has written extensively on religion, gender and sexuality in modern Thailand as well as critical approaches to Asian area studies. His ongoing research includes studying media and masculinity in Thai gay cultures and religion and ritual in Thai communities affected by HIV.Benjamin Baumann is an assistant professor at the University of Heidelberg. His ethnographic work examines rural lifeworlds, socio-cultural identities and local language games in Thailand's lower Northeast, focusing on how the ghostly structures the imagination, reproduction of social collectives and communal sentiments of belonging.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dkTranscripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

Does the rise of China mean that studying Japan is inexorably declining? Many students become interested in Japan because of popular culture, such manga and video games: is this a good or a bad thing? In an era of Google Translate and nifty smartphone apps, do people still need to spend years and years learning Japanese? What kind of problems do prevailing notions of methodological nationalism create for the study of Japan? And how can scholars of Japan best adapt to the rapidly-changing academic landscape?In this wide-ranging conversation with NIAS Director Duncan McCargo, Aike P. Rots, an associate professor of Japan Studies at the University of Oslo, explains the thinking behind an engaging March 2022 keynote address he gave to a conference at Copenhagen Business School on the topic of ‘Japan and Japanese Studies in the Twenty-First Century’.Aike Rots works on a variety of Asia-related issues, including religion, culture, biodiversity and the environment. He currently holds a European Research Council Starter Grant entitled ‘entitled ‘Whales of Power: Aquatic Mammals, Devotional Practices, and Environmental Change in Maritime East Asia’ .Read his short article on methodological nationalism in Japanese studies here:The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcastAbout NIAS: www.nias.ku.dk

What can textiles tell us about histories of genocide and the lived experiences of prisoners?In this episode, Dr. Magali-An Berthon discusses the treatment of prisoners at S-21 and how clothes played a role into their imprisonment and dehumanization. She retraces the formation of the textile collection at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, starting with a large pile of clothes on display in the first years of the museum, which was then moved in 1991, before being removed altogether in 2011, and which was recently recovered. The current content of the collection includes about 3,500 recovered garments, textiles and fragments, that all tell intimate stories of individuals and survival.Dr. Magali-An Berthon is a textile historian focusing on the contemporary history of Southeast Asian dress and textiles. She is a European Union Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen.Dr. Terese Gagnon is an environmental anthropologist and Postdoctoral Researcher in the Politics of Climate and Sustainability in Asia at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dkTranscripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

In the past few years, youth-led groups such as the Fridays for Future school strike movement have changed the face of climate activism globally. In this interview, Malaysian youth climate advocate Farhana Shukor talks about her experience working on climate change issues in her native country as well as at the international stage as an observer at the COP26 climate conference in November 2021. Farhana discusses the significance of loss and damage in the Malaysian context, her wishes for Southeast Asian collaboration on climate change as well as what Nordic youth activists could learn from the Malaysian climate movement.Farhana Shukor has over 4 years of experience in climate advocacy in both local and international NGOs. She serves as the co-focal point for the Malaysian Youth Delegation for climate change (MYD) and is the co-founder of bumii, a platform for climate action.Farhana was interviewed by Quynh Le Vo, who received a NIAS SUPRA scholarship when working on her master’s thesis about the Asian Development Bank’s climate adaptation projects in Southeast Asia.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dkTranscripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

Jose Ramos-Horta topped the first round of polling in the 2022 Timor-Leste presidential elections, securing 46.56 per cent of the popular vote on 19 March. Here he speaks to Amber Woortman in a special interview for the Nordic Asia Podcast. During the 24 years he spent in exile, José Ramos-Horta was a strong advocate for the people of Timor-Leste during the brutal Indonesian occupation, and travelled all over the world to bring international attention to the cause of Timor-Leste. In 1996, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, together with Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo “for their work towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor”. José Ramos-Horta later served as his country’s second president from 2007 until 2012.In the second episode of the short series of the Timor-Leste focused Nordic Asia Podcasts, Amber Woortman, a master’s student in political science at the University of Copenhagen, talks with presidential front-runner José Ramos-Horta about the election, running against incumbent president Francisco Guterres (aka Lu’Olo), the recent constitutional crisis, Timor-Leste’s main political challenges in the post-independence era, the role of history in the daily life of Timorese people, the new generation, and his hopes for the future of Timor-Leste as a member of ASEAN.You can listen to Amber’s first Timor-Leste podcast on the background to the 2022 elections here:https://newbooksnetwork.com/understanding-east-timors-2022-presidential-electionsThe Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcastAbout NIAS: www.nias.ku.dk

The Russian war in Ukraine has placed India in a difficult situation: how to retain the historically good relationship with Russia, without jeopardizing the increasingly important strategic partnership with the USA? In this episode, Kenneth Bo Nielsen is joined by Ravinder Kaur, Henrik Chetan Aspengren and Sunniva Engh to analyze the diplomatic tightrope that India has had to walk over the war in Ukraine, and draw out the implications of India handling of its Ukrainian Dilemma for the country’s position in the world, and for global geopolitics more broadly.Sunniva Engh is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Oslo.Henrik Chetan Aspengren is a Research Fellow at the Asia Programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.Ravinder Kaur is an Associate Professor of Modern South Asian Studies and directs the Centre of Global South Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen.Kenneth Bo Nielsen is an Associate Professor at the dept. of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and one of the leaders of the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dkTranscripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast