Repatriation and release of Japanese war criminals 1946-1958: Southeast Asia, Japan and the Great Powers. Japanese war criminals held in Southeast Asia were repatriated and released in Japan from the late 1940s. Releases were negotiated between Japan and the nation that had convicted the prisoner. The project provides new understandings of the emergence of Southeast Asian states in regional diplomacy and of Japan's re-emergence as a regional power.
Decolonisation and photography in Southeast Asia: Histories and legacies. This project aims to investigate the untold history of decolonisation in Southeast Asia through amateur soldier photographs taken on the front line of conflicts. Such photographs constitute a vast yet neglected archive that promises unique insights into encounters between combatants on all sides, and with civilians whose experiences have rarely been accessible, particularly women, children and unfree workers. The expected ....Decolonisation and photography in Southeast Asia: Histories and legacies. This project aims to investigate the untold history of decolonisation in Southeast Asia through amateur soldier photographs taken on the front line of conflicts. Such photographs constitute a vast yet neglected archive that promises unique insights into encounters between combatants on all sides, and with civilians whose experiences have rarely been accessible, particularly women, children and unfree workers. The expected outcomes of this project are to produce new understandings of violence in decolonisation and the long-term legacies of colonialism in Southeast Asia. This project also intends to provide a critical historical framework for understanding the meaning and impact of photographs taken in war.Read moreRead less
Confronting Historical Injustice in Indonesia: Memory and Transnational Human Rights Activism. Since the 1990s there has been a boom in memory and in human rights activism relating to historical injustice in Indonesia. Using an innovative framework of the concept of ‘regions of memory’ this project examines how human rights activists located within and outside Indonesia use memory for the purposes of achieving human rights outcomes. Through national and international collaborations this project ....Confronting Historical Injustice in Indonesia: Memory and Transnational Human Rights Activism. Since the 1990s there has been a boom in memory and in human rights activism relating to historical injustice in Indonesia. Using an innovative framework of the concept of ‘regions of memory’ this project examines how human rights activists located within and outside Indonesia use memory for the purposes of achieving human rights outcomes. Through national and international collaborations this project will analyse why transnational activism concerning crimes from the Japanese occupation (1942-45), the independence struggle (1945-1949) and the 1965 mass violence escalated at particular points in time and deepen our understanding of the relationship between memory and human rights.Read moreRead less
Peking opera, epitheatre and writing in nineteenth-century Beijing. Employing the neglected 'flower-guide' booklets of nineteenth-century Beijing, this project explores the role theatre-based popular literature played in the formation of the capital city's emerging public sphere. Establishing epitheatre as a new field, it opens new horizons in the history of modern China, social history and literary criticism.
Imagining histories of love: the making of textual worlds in Taiwan romance fiction. This project examines the crucial question of how romantic love is imagined in contemporary Chinese societies. It innovates by analyzing the images of love presented in Taiwan romance fiction, a major genre of unstudied texts that provides knowledge of the emotional worlds of tens of millions of people worldwide. Its novel methodology approaches romantic narratives as documents of a history of love, producing ne ....Imagining histories of love: the making of textual worlds in Taiwan romance fiction. This project examines the crucial question of how romantic love is imagined in contemporary Chinese societies. It innovates by analyzing the images of love presented in Taiwan romance fiction, a major genre of unstudied texts that provides knowledge of the emotional worlds of tens of millions of people worldwide. Its novel methodology approaches romantic narratives as documents of a history of love, producing new concepts of Taiwan and Chinese society and history in which love is envisioned as the central experience of human life. Major outcomes will be a substantial monograph, an edited volume and several scholarly articles.Read moreRead less
Consumption in Late Imperial China: an Early Modern Phenomenon? China's present economic growth and consumer activity are of immediate interest to Australia. This study of consumer activities in earlier centuries will shed light on changes as well as continuities in Chinese consumption in a long era of globalization. The project will contribute to the corpus of Australian scholarship on Chinese and world history, enhancing local and global understandings of China's past, and enriching ways in wh ....Consumption in Late Imperial China: an Early Modern Phenomenon? China's present economic growth and consumer activity are of immediate interest to Australia. This study of consumer activities in earlier centuries will shed light on changes as well as continuities in Chinese consumption in a long era of globalization. The project will contribute to the corpus of Australian scholarship on Chinese and world history, enhancing local and global understandings of China's past, and enriching ways in which it is imagined.Read moreRead less
Empire to Republic: Politics and Culture in China's 20th Century History. This research project focuses on state and nation building in South China during the Republican era (1912-1949), the subject of major international publications by the CI and PI over a fifteen-year research partnership. The significance of the topic lies in its historiographical departure from narratives of ?party history? to theoretically-driven research into key aspects of modern state and nation-making in a formative pe ....Empire to Republic: Politics and Culture in China's 20th Century History. This research project focuses on state and nation building in South China during the Republican era (1912-1949), the subject of major international publications by the CI and PI over a fifteen-year research partnership. The significance of the topic lies in its historiographical departure from narratives of ?party history? to theoretically-driven research into key aspects of modern state and nation-making in a formative period of China's recent history. Outcomes include research training and theses, and refereed publications, which break new ground in their systematic application of state-making literature to Republican Chinese history.Read moreRead less
Seeking the state: Incorporating the state on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. This study will provide significant theoretical insight into the functioning of the state both regionally and internationally by providing a local perspective on how Cocos Malays bring the state into their daily lives. Because they lie between Indonesia and Northwest Australia, the Cocos Islands play an important role in Australia's defence, security, and quarantine interests. The Malays residing there constitute an impor ....Seeking the state: Incorporating the state on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. This study will provide significant theoretical insight into the functioning of the state both regionally and internationally by providing a local perspective on how Cocos Malays bring the state into their daily lives. Because they lie between Indonesia and Northwest Australia, the Cocos Islands play an important role in Australia's defence, security, and quarantine interests. The Malays residing there constitute an important minority and one of Australia's oldest Islamic communities. This project is a fieldwork-based analysis of the way community members negotiate their identity as Australian citizens and Malay Muslims in relation to the state.Read moreRead less
The politics of (un)forgetting: Indonesia’s nativist decolonisation. The project aims to investigate the dynamics of Indonesia’s politics today as an extended battle to remember or forget violent events, including those which took place around Indonesia’s decolonisation in the 1940s. It will offer new insights into ethical and political issues of how that past has significant bearing upon key political debates in contemporary Indonesia. In addition to conventional archives, the project will exam ....The politics of (un)forgetting: Indonesia’s nativist decolonisation. The project aims to investigate the dynamics of Indonesia’s politics today as an extended battle to remember or forget violent events, including those which took place around Indonesia’s decolonisation in the 1940s. It will offer new insights into ethical and political issues of how that past has significant bearing upon key political debates in contemporary Indonesia. In addition to conventional archives, the project will examine popular culture (cinema, radio, fiction, newspaper) as an innovative research field in its own right. The project aims to deliver richly-nuanced insights about Indonesia and its longstanding connections with Australia beyond the pursuit of material interests.Read moreRead less