The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides full funding for graduate and professional students conducting research or teaching in any field in more than 150 countries. (Open to U.S. citizens only.)

The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad program supports doctoral students conducting research in modern languages or area studies for six to 12 months. (Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents of the United States. Travel to Western European countries is not eligible.)

The Einaudi Center administers the Fulbright program at Cornell. As the home of Cornell’s Fulbright program, we offer all the resources that students need to apply for prestigious Fulbright international study and research funding. Learn more about Fulbright at Cornell.

Join this Einaudi Center Student Info Session to find out if Fulbright is right for you!

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Contact: fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu

Develop your dissertation on global issues with a toolkit of resources!

The Einaudi Dissertation Proposal Development Program (DPD) supports 12 PhD students annually. Applicants’ research projects must focus on global issues, but the proposed research setting may be international or domestic.

Over the course of the year, you’ll participate in seminars, workshops, and mentoring sessions and receive up to $5,000 for summer research. Join this Einaudi Center Student Info Session to find out how to apply!

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Contact: programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

Do you want to understand how human migration shapes our world on the move? In the Einaudi Center’s migration studies minor, you explore the factors that influence migrants’ decisions to migrate and drive their departure, arrival, and integration into new societies.

The minor is open to all Cornell undergraduates and includes courses from across the university.

Join this Einaudi Center Student Info Session to find out more!

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Contact: migration-minor@einaudi.cornell.edu

Is the Einaudi Center's international relations minor for you? Join this Einaudi Center Student Info Session to find out.

In the international relations minor, you study the politics, economics, history, languages, and cultures of the world and gain a fresh perspective on your major field of study. Graduates go on to successful careers in fields like international law, economics, agriculture, trade, finance, journalism, education, and government service.

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Contact: irm@einaudi.cornell.edu

The Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS) offers an interdisciplinary minor, summer internships, and other funding opportunities. Join this Einaudi Center Student Info Session to find out what LACS has in store for you!

The Latin American studies minor is an undergraduate minor across disciplines that allow you to explore the history, culture, government, politics, economy and languages of Latin America and the Caribbean. Qualifying courses can be found in almost every college.

Our summer internships sent several students to Ecuador in 2022!

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Contact: lacs@cornell.edu

Listening to the Shan Diaspora Soundscapes in Thailand: The Reflection of Home and Political Imagination.

This presentation will examine the performance of various genres of Shan music among the Shan diaspora in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I will unpack the processes of creating, performing and transmitting Shan music in a variety of social contexts. “Pan Kao” (Shan traditional music) and “Pan Mai” (Shan Pop music) both reflect on the ways in which the Shan in exile constructed their cultural identity and collective memory, which related to the idea of Shan nationalism. While the Shan diaspora negotiates their identity with the host country through traditional music, particularly the Shan long drum, political pop rock music is being used to reconnect with the Shan people in Shan State, Myanmar. The pop rock music created by the Shan ethnic armed group also played a vital role in forming a genre of music and political imagination among the Shan generation Y who grew up in Thailand. However, following Myanmar’s military coup in 2021, the younger generation (Generation Z) attempts to create new soundscapes in solidarity with the people of Myanmar, opposing the coup and participating in the Spring Revolution 2021. In contrast to previous generations, who embraced the idea of Shan nationalism, I will examine how the altering soundscape represents a new interpretation of collective memory.

Oradi Inkhong is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Cornell University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of ethnomusicology, diaspora studies, and Southeast Asian studies. Her dissertation research explores the making of diasporic music by ethnic Shan migrants living in Thailand. She conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Shan State, Myanmar to understand the role of music in constructing and redefining the meaning of “home(s)” as a crucial component of Shan diasporic consciousness. Previously, Oradi received her BA in Journalism (Film and Photography) and her MA in Anthropology from Thammasat University, Thailand.

Talk by Dr. Natali Pearson

In 1998, the Belitung, a ninth-century western Indian Ocean–style vessel, was discovered in Indonesian waters. Onboard was a full cargo load, likely intended for the Middle Eastern market, of over 60,000 Chinese Tang dynasty (619–907) ceramics, gold, and other precious objects. It is one of the most significant shipwreck discoveries of recent times, revealing the global scale of ancient commercial endeavors and the importance of the ocean to these trading networks. But this shipwreck also has a modern tale to tell, of how nation-states appropriate the remnants of the past for their own purposes, and of the international debates about who owns—and is responsible for—shared heritage. In this seminar, I focus on the Belitung’s connections to the Muslim world—as suggested by its origins, as evidenced by its extraordinary cargo, and as implied in its display—and reflect on the knowledge this wreck has brought to the surface.

** Co-sponsored with the Southeast Asia Program

Brenda Yeoh (National University of Singapore) gives the 12th Frank H. Golay Memorial Lecture.

The prevailing neoliberal labour migration regime in Asia is underpinned by principles of enforced transience: the overwhelming majority of migrants—particularly those seeking low skilled, low-waged work—are admitted into host nation-states on the basis of short-term, time-bound contracts, with little or no possibility of family reunification or permanent settlement at the destination. As families go transnational, ‘family times’ become inextricably intertwined with the ‘times of migration’ (Cwerner, 2001). In this context, for many migrant-sending families in Southeast Asian source countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, parental migration as a strategy for migrating out of poverty or for socio-economic advancement requires the left-behind family to resiliently absorb the uncertainties of parental leaving and returning. Based on longitudinal research on Indonesian and Filipino rural households in migrant-sending villages, the presentation investigates the vital links between the time construct of seriality in migration on the one hand, and the temporal structure of family-based social reproduction on the other. By drawing attention to the co-existence of and contradictions between multiple temporalities in the lives of migrants and their families, a critical temporalities framework yields new insights for understanding the sustainability of transnational families in the liminal times of migration.

Brenda S.A. Yeoh FBA is Raffles Professor of Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Research Leader of the Asian Migration Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, NUS. Professor Yeoh made important contributions to the field of migration and transnationalism studies and was awarded the Vautrin Lud Prize for outstanding achievements in Geography in 2021. Her work is distinctly Asia-focused while also significant for theory-building more generally. She is widely recognised for her research leadership in three areas: migration-led diversification, cosmopolitanism and spatial politics; human aspiration, care migration and social reproduction among migrant households in Southeast Asia; migration infrastructures and transnational mobility of migrant workers at various skill levels. She has published widely on these topics and her recent books include Handbook of Asian Migrations (Routledge, 2018 with Gracia Liu-Farrer); Student Mobilities and International Education in Asia: Emotional Geographies of Knowledge Spaces (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019 with R.K. Sidhu and K.C. Ho) and Handbook of Transnationalism (Edward Elgar, 2022 with F.L. Collins).

Light reception to immediately follow in PSB West Pavilion.

Miles Kenney-Lazar

Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, National Unviersity of Singapore

On February 1st, 2021, the armed forces of Myanmar (Burma) carried out a coup d’état, toppling the democratically elected government formed by the National League for Democracy (NLD). Since that fateful event, the country has experienced radical changes driven by political and violent conflict between the military government and the wide range of groups that oppose it. Everyday citizens took to the streets to protest the military junta, many of whom were shot and killed by security forces. A civil disobedience movement (CDM) formed amongst civil servants while workers from various industries engaged in labor strikes to bring the functioning of the military-controlled government to a halt. Militias known as people’s defense forces sprung up across the country to defend communities from military violence, such as air strikes in ethnic regions. As the durability of the coup became apparent, new institutions were formed to
create a stronger opposition to the military. Members of Parliament (MPs) elected in the 2020 election formed a legislative body and government in exile. Additionally, a political platform was created to facilitate an alliance among elected MPs, ethnic resistance organizations, and other anti-regime groups. Thus, the stage has been set for a longer conflict and resistance groups are increasingly driven by the desire for an absolute revolution that abolishes the military and institutes a federal democracy.

Within this dynamic political environment, there has been a pivot from immediate protest and reaction to the junta toward longer-term strategic action. A range of political actors have been discussing what the future Myanmar society they are fighting for should look like. There are ongoing deliberations concerning the desired principles of federal democracy and how they might be embodied in a new constitution. Ongoing debates concern how to set up new systems of humanitarian support, health care, and education. This talk addresses ongoing efforts to devise new approaches for governing land and associated natural resources. Supported by a team of CDM researchers, interviews were held online from June to August 2022 using encrypted communication. Various oppositional actors and key informants working on land issues shared their visions for the future of land and recommendations for actions that should be taken to achieve them. Land issues may seem inconsequential at this moment in comparison to the humanitarian conflicts and crises the country is facing, but the interviewees felt otherwise. Many expressed that it is essential to begin thinking now about how land relations should
be organized in an equitable, democratic, decentralized, and just society to avoid repeating the problems of the past. Furthermore, there is much that can be done right now to protect frontline communities from threats to their land and set up governance systems that strengthen opposition to the military.

I am interested in the changing political ecologies of land and property in the Mekong Region, especially how the capitalization and commodification of land produces unequal agrarian and environmental geographies with significant livelihood ramifications. I have long been captivated by the the possibility of resistance by the rural poor to the dispossession of their lands and their capacity to influence governance processes. Empirically, my research has examined land contestation related to the expansion of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Burmese agro-industrial plantations and special economic zones in Laos and Myanmar. I also maintain broader theoretical interests in the intersections of value and nature under capitalism, the transformation of late socialist political economies, and the relational construction of sovereignty over land and resources. Beyond political ecology, my scholarship contributes to political geography, development geography, agrarian studies, and Southeast Asian area studies.

***Note that this talk takes place at 8pm, not the usual 12:30pm. It will be held entirely on Zoom.

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

Sunisa Manning

Writer

Sunisa Manning’s work challenges us to consider how fiction can translate movements across borders while remaining loyal to their origin stories. Her recent novel A Good True Thai describes the Thai 1970s student radicalization and revolution. This reading and talk will extend the questions of her novel to consider how writing fiction can operate as a decolonial praxis and translate history for new audiences.

Sunisa Manning was born and raised in Bangkok by Thai and American parents. Her first novel, A Good True Thai, was a finalist for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize for Southeast Asian writers. It was published in September 2020, and went into a second printing in February 2021.

Co-sponsored by the Asian & Asian American Center (A3C); and the Department of Performing and Media Arts.

This Gatty lecture will take place in person at the Kahin Center, but people are also welcome to join us on Zoom.

Lunch will be served.

For questions, please contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.