Social & Cultural Transformations in Asia
This research focus area captures important ongoing work in Monash Malaysia and in universities in the South East Asia region, Australia and elsewhere. Areas of focus that are of interest include the following:
Digital Southeast Asia
The ways in which digital technologies are changing all areas of social life -- the ways we work, live in the home, move about cities, practice religion, make friends, migrate and live as migrants, shop, access health services, are governed -- is constitutive of the fourth industrial revolution. This research stream investigates the specific Southeast Asian manifestations of these transformations, and considers their implications for the economic, social and cultural development of societies in the region.
Areas of research include, but are not limited to:
- digital technologies and migration
- digital labour
- online games/e-sports
- digital health
- messaging apps
- digital religion
- e-commerce
Key contact information:
Associate Professor Emma Baulch
Assoc. Prof. Emma’s research is located in the fields of Asian cultural studies and media and communications studies. She is interested in how new media technologies alter and are altered by existing Southeast Asian social formations revolving around race, class and ethnicity. Most of her research work is ethnographic in nature, and attends to the interaction of material and social worlds through a focus on the everyday uses of new media technologies. Recent publications include mHealth innovation in Asia: Grassroots Challenges and Practical Interventions (Springer 2017, with Jerry Watkins and Amina Tariq) and Digital Transactions in Asia (Routledge 2019, with Adrian Athique). She is also co-author of the forthcoming WhatsApp: From a one-to-one messaging service to a global social media platform (Polity, with Amelia Johns and Ariadna Matamoros Fernandez).
Associate Professor Santha Vaithilingam
Assoc. Prof. Santha Vaithilingam's research interests are in developing econometric models to study innovation and sustainability of marginalized communities. These research areas are aligned to the national priority areas under Malaysia’s New Economic Model and Government Transformation Program. Her other areas of interest are in computable general equilibrium (CGE) and development and behavioural economics. She has published articles in international journals and has also presented in several national and international conferences and forums. Jointly working with the Centre of Policy Studies in Monash University Australia, she assisted The Ministry of Finance, Malaysia in the development of the Malaysian Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium model for macroeconomic and industrial policy formulation.
Migration and mobilities in Asia
The migration and circulations of people, cultures, ideas, and capital in Asia is not something new. In historical as well as contemporary times, Asia has been at the centre of dynamic, complex, and overlapping flows of migration and mobilities, which are intertwined with the rapid economic and urban developments of the region. Migration and mobilities in Asia are intertwined with and reflect rapid and profound transformations in Asian societies and beyond. These patterns of migration and mobilities are impacting and transforming notions of national identities, socio-cultural practices, transnational politics and solidarities, and future visions of modernity.
Areas of research include, but are not limited to:
- interdisciplinary approaches to migration and mobilities in Asia
- migration aspirations and migrants’ agency
- migration management and governance
- migration industry
- migration and planetary crises
- migration and social change
- migration and inequality
Key contact information:
Dr Koh Sin Yee is a human geographer with expertise in migration studies (education, skilled, lifestyle, transnational mobilities, migration industry) and urban studies (urbanisation and social change in Asia, urban intermediaries). Her work uses the lens of migration and mobility to understand the circulations of people, capital, and aspirations in and through cities. Together with Dr Sharuna Verghis, she is establishing an interdisciplinary research cluster on migration and mobilities in the Asia Pacific.
Dr. Sharuna Verghis is a public health researcher, educator, and humanitarian. She has extensive work experience in relation to HIV and mobility in South and SouthEast Asia, and the Middle East, and has provided technical support for the establishment of community-based organisations working on mobility and HIV in Vietnam and Cambodia. She has served on national, regional, and international research and intervention projects and has a keen interest in engaging on these projects from a multidisciplinary perspective. Dr Verghis’ research interests include migration and health (including labour migration, forced migration, human trafficking and statelessness), health systems and health policy, access to healthcare, health education, sexual and reproductive health, community-based mental health, task shifting and community health workers, health disparities and monitoring the right to health, mixed methods research, and theories and practices of community-based participatory research .