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Southeast Asia Program

Fish Biodiversity Benefits Household Nutrition

A fisherman checks his catch in Cambodia.
November 5, 2024

Kathryn Fiorella in World in Focus

Migrations Program director Kathryn Fiorella coauthored an article, “Commercially Traded Fish Portfolios Mask Household Utilization of Biodiversity in Wild Food Systems,” in the peer-reviewed journal PNAS.

“Natural resource–dependent households rely on surrounding biodiversity for their food and income. Explicating the ways households use biodiversity is critical to appreciating the true value of diverse ecosystems.”

Households living near rice field fisheries in Cambodia eat a much wider cross-section of their fish catch (43% of local species) than they take to market to sell (only 9%). 

“Poorer households also consumed more species, underscoring how wild food systems may most benefit the vulnerable,” the article concludes. The results highlight the food security consequences of biodiversity loss—for families, communities, and global food systems.

The team's research integrated surveys of households and ecological sites collected over three years in the freshwater Tonlé Sap lake system in Cambodia. Cornell Chronicle coverage noted that the study—part of Cornell's 2030 Project—is one of the first to examine how diet and biodiversity interact in a wild food system.

Culinary habits are part of the reason why larger fish are more often sold, Fiorella said. “We tend to eat them as fillets, which tend to have a slightly lower nutrient content than some of the small fish where people are eating the head and the bones,” she said. To boost their household income, people sell the popular but less nutritious fish, and eat the more nutritious fish at home.

Kathryn Fiorella is director of Einaudi's Migrations Program and an associate professor of public and ecosystem health in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Read the PNAS article

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Indonesia in 10 Films

Indonesia in 10 Films is the newest podcast from the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University. Join Michael Kirkpatrick Miller and Neen Yada Tangcharoenmonkong as they delve into 10 essential Indonesian films. Each episode discusses one movie shot in, on, or about Indonesia and features a conversation with an expert on Indonesian film.

Justice on the Brink: Thailand’s Struggle for Human Rights and Democracy

November 13, 2024

12:10 pm

Cornell Law School, 186

About our Speaker:

Sirikan “June” Charoensiri is the Executive Advisor at TLHR, which she co-founded after the 2014 military coup in Thailand. In 2024, she founded Engage Thailand to further democracy and human rights advocacy internationally. June has a legal background from Thammasat University and the University of Essex. She has faced threats for her advocacy work but continues to fight for justice. June has received several awards, including the Lawyers for Lawyers Award in 2017 and the U.S. State Department's 2018 International Women of Courage Award.

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

Southeast Asia Program

Global Cornell Experience Showcase

November 19, 2024

4:00 pm

Physical Sciences Building, Baker Portico & Atrium

Over 70 undergraduate students will present their international summer experiences in a poster session. Their work includes conducting research, working in Global Internships, and putting leadership into action as Laidlaw scholars.

The poster session will be in the Baker Portico & Atrium of the Physical Sciences Building. Light refreshments will be served.

Applications for Global Internships are open now. Applications for the Laidlaw Scholars Program will open on November 15.

Global Internships give undergraduate students valuable international experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more. They are managed by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and Office of Global Learning, both part of Global Cornell.

The Laidlaw Undergraduate Leadership and Research Scholarship Program provides generous funding to first- and second-year undergraduates over two years as they pursue internationally focused research, engage in leadership training and a leadership-in-action experience, and join a global network of like-minded peers. The program is managed by the Einaudi Center.

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

East Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Institute for African Development

Institute for European Studies

South Asia Program

Migrations Program

How to Conduct Research in Malaysia & Singapore

November 14, 2024

7:00 pm

Are you a graduate student about to embark on research in Malaysia and/or Singapore for the first time? Join GETSEA for a roundtable and Q&A session with Dr. Meredith Weiss (Albany), Justin Weinstock (UC Berkeley) and Zheng Wang (Albany) to get a sense of what conducting research in these two countries entails.

This webinar is part of the GETSEA ‘How to Conduct Research in Southeast Asia’ Series, and is co-sponsored by the Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei Study Group.

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

Southeast Asia Program

Klenengan: A Gamelan Gathering

November 17, 2024

11:00 am

Klarman Hall Atrium

Featured guests Wakidi Dwidjomartono and Heni Savitri join the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble and leading members of the larger American gamelan community for a klenengan, a long and relatively informal gathering that best accommodates the temporal expansiveness of Javanese gamelan music. Audience members are free to come and go, to enjoy snacks, and even to chat quietly with one another. The relaxed atmosphere fosters a mood in which focused concentration is tempered by an equal sense of calm and comfort. Starting no later than 11am and ending no earlier than 4pm, with a hands-on workshop during a lunch break at 1pm.

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

Southeast Asia Program

The 27th Cornell SEAP Graduate Student Conference: Mobility

The front page of the Call for Papers for this conference, featuring the word "Mobility" across a pockmarked stone background.
October 28, 2024

Abstracts due November 30

How is Southeast Asia animated and made to move? Who crosses boundaries, who stays still, and what jams, messes, conscriptions, and inscriptions are we bound to? Resisting both dreams of frictionless passage and fantasies of fixed origins, the theme of the 27th SEAP Graduate Student Conference waves in reflections on mobility and its constraints. We await explorations of that which is trans (-national, -Pacific, -imperial, -gressive) or in trans (-ition, -mission, -lation). We welcome interrogations on that which is mobile yet clandestine, unintended, or interrupted. What kinetic energies are released by diasporas in seeds, chemicals, finances, and tastes? What constitutes the motion in activist, insurgent, protest, or resistance movements, and who moves against the movers? What disturbed temporalities, what uncertain spatialities, what contingent choreographies are produced by the travel of soldiers, pollutants, scientists, viruses, and images of young hippos in Thai zoos? Moo Deng and we invite submissions which agitate stagnant pools of nationality and syncopate staid rhythms of history. Viewing the academy itself as a site of stupor, we also welcome scholarship which unsettles the heavy dust of area studies.

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CFP: Teach a GETSEA Mini-Course

The GETSEA logo on a pale green background.
October 28, 2024

Open to faculty from any institution

The consortium for Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asian Studies (GETSEA) has funding to offer a series of non-credit, specialized mini-courses to be held online through synchronous video-conferencing. The primary focus should be Southeast Asia and can be on any topic or in any discipline, incorporating voices and perspectives from Southeast Asia. Multidisciplinary and cotaught collaborative courses are encouraged. We particularly welcome courses with a narrow focus on particular topics which might not normally be taught as a full semester-long course.

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Information Session: Laidlaw Research and Leadership Program

November 13, 2024

12:00 pm

The Laidlaw Undergraduate Leadership and Research Program promotes ethical leadership and international research around the world—starting with the passionate leaders and learners found on campuses like Cornell. Open to first- and second-year students, the two-year Laidlaw program provides generous support to carry out internationally focused research, develop leadership skills, engage with community projects overseas, and become part of a global network of like-minded scholars from more than a dozen universities. We’ll also share tips for approaching potential faculty research mentors and writing a successful application.

Register for the virtual session.

Can’t attend? Contact laidlaw.scholars@cornell.edu.

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The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

East Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Institute for African Development

Institute for European Studies

South Asia Program

Migrations Program

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