The Nordic Asia Podcast

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 role played by Europe/the EU and the specific implications for Norway of the burgeoning US-China great power rivalry.

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 schemes like Malaysia’s 1MBD. Their forthcoming co-authored monograph will offer new insights into how money fuels Southeast Asia’s politics.

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 influence the policies of India's present Government led by Prime Minister Modi.

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 emerged in a lack of an overall strategy to handle the pandemic. In the time of crisis local level actors have stepped up to present much-needed leadership.

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 Rohingya refugees?

In the first of our COVID-19 podcasts, Lauri Paltemaa joins Outi Luova for a conversation on China's efforts to manage the COVID-19 epidemic, which he argues come straight from socialist China’s disaster management campaign playbook. Maoist era methods have simply been upgraded using the latest surveillance and communication technologies. Lauri Paltemaa discusses why this legacy could be very worrisome if China faces a second wave of the epidemic. 

In the latest Nordic Asia podcast, Aim Sinpeng from the University of Sydney joins Duncan McCargo to talk about the Future Forward Party - a progressive new party that took third place in the March 2019 Thai elections, only to be banned less than a year later by the Constitutional Court. Aim shares insights from her many interviews with Future Forward MPs and candidates to explain how the new party performed so well electorally, despite rejecting traditional campaigning methods in local areas. This is a fascinating conversation about one of the hottest issues affecting Thai politics in recent years.