Gatty Lecture Series

*Please note this Gatty Lecture takes place on Friday, not Thursday*

Join us for a talk by Micah R. Fisher, Assistant Professor, Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, School of Communication & Information at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

This Gatty Lecture will take place at the Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave. Lunch will be served. For questions, contact seap@cornell.edu.

Abstract

This presentation draws together critical agrarian studies and the geopolitics of knowledge production to examine how inheritance remains unsettled, both for those who inherit land in Southeast Asia and for those who inherit the work of studying it. The talk unfolds in three parts. The first establishes a conceptual foundation grounded in village-level land politics, bringing foundational theories of property, access, and exclusion into conversation with one another. The second draws on a decade of editorial experience with the journal Forest and Society, reflecting on efforts to decenter academic publishing and elevate a new generation of scholarship from the region. The third looks toward a future for area studies built on regional networks, using joint field schools as a model. This model has functioned as a mechanism for institutional parity with Southeast Asian universities, while also working to build equitable partnerships with local communities. I conclude with a framework for rethinking resource governance and collaborative pedagogy together in the study of contemporary Southeast Asia.

About the Speaker

Micah R. Fisher, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Matsunaga Institute for Peace & Conflict Resolution at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and Senior Researcher with the Forest and Society Research Group at Hasanuddin University in Makassar, Indonesia. He studies how land, forests, and livelihoods are transformed across Indonesia and Southeast Asia through commodity booms, conservation policy, and shifting resource claims. This research is grounded in over two decades of long-term fieldwork in South Sulawesi, East Kalimantan, and Jakarta. He is co-Editor-in-Chief of Forest and Society, a leading journal in Southeast Asian forest governance, and serves as Conference Chair of the 2027 Biennial of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, to be hosted in Sulawesi, Indonesia. He also leads the Henry Luce Foundation–funded LuceSEA Transitions Field Schools, a partnership with Southeast Asian universities. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography and the Environment from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His current book project, Inheritance, traces the aftermath of the first formal return of state forest lands to an Indigenous community in Indonesia.