Programme
Time
Programme
Venue
08:00am onwards
Registration
Coffee, tea, and light refreshments will be served.
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza Foyer
09:00am – 10:30am
Parallel Session 3
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza & UOB Innovation Hub
10.30am – 10.45am
Break
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza Foyer
10:45am – 12:15pm
Parallel Session 4
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza & UOB Innovation Hub
12:15pm – 14:15pm
Luncheon hosted by RSIS
The Roof Deck, Level 3, UOB Innovation Hub
14:15pm – 15:45pm
Parallel Session 5
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza & UOB Innovation Hub
15:45pm – 16:00pm
Tea Break
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza Foyer
16:00pm – 17:30pm
Parallel Session 6
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza & UOB Innovation Hub
17:30pm – 18:30pm
Optional: Transport to Marina Bay (free & easy time)
Gather at Wee Cho Yaw Foyer
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza level 2
Room [ABS-02-SR5] - China's Influence in Southeast Asia: Constraints and Contestation
- Chair
Li Mingjiang - Discussant
Stefanie Kam Li Yee - Tommy Chai
“China’s ‘Southern Strategic Problem’: Three Corridors of Advance, Two Friction Gates, and One Gatekeeper in Southeast Asia” - Emirza Adi Syailendra
“Southeast Asia–China Tacit Understandings Underpinning Restraint in the South China Sea” - Sarah Teo (coauthored with Dylan Loh)
“Interrogating responses to China’s coercion: A comparative analysis of Australia, Philippines and South Korea”
Room [ABS-02-SR6] - Diversities of Governance: State and Society in Southeast Asia
- Presenter / Chair
Mark Thompson
“Comparison despite Diversity? Studying Pushback against Backsliding across Southeast Asia” - Francesca Chiu
“Struggling to Stay Abroad: Rethinking Immobility through the Case of Myanmar Migrants” - Mohd Faizul Ilham Ibrahim
“Tribal Indigeneity and National Identity: State and Society in Brunei and Singapore” - Cheekiong Tong
“Tribal Indigeneity and National Identity: State and Society in Brunei and Singapore”
Room [ABS-02-SR8] - Indonesian Foreign Policy and National Role Conceptions
- Chair
John Lowe - Sui Xuemeng
“Rhetorical Adaptation and the Reconstruction of Non-Alignment Norms in Indonesia after the Cold War” - Tannu Tiwari
“State Agency and Critical Minerals Governance in Southeast Asia under China-centred Supply Chain Structures” - Seon Young Yang
“ASEAN’s Discourse and diplomatic implications: Critical discourse analysis of ASEAN’s outcome documents”
Room [ABS-02-SR10] - Authoritarian Politics, Militias, and Ethnic Conflict
Chair
Bich TranSai Tun Aung Lwin
“Tribalism in Militias Is Growing: Militia Growth and its Implications for Security Sector”Jae Hyun Park
“From Opium to Avocados: Factor Endowments, Constraints, and Rebel Revenue Activity Choices in Myanmar Civil War”Suthikarn Meechan
“Electoral Fragmentation and Competitive Clientelism: Northeast Thailand in the 2026 General Election”
UOB Innovation Hub level B1
Room [LHS-TR36-B1-02] - Algorithmic Politics, Digital Influence, and AI Governance
- Chair
Rifki Dermawan - Ardianto Budi Rahmawan
“Algorithmic Administration: The Transformation of Administrative Law Through AI Adoption in Southeast Asian Governance Systems” - Mohammad Syaban
“Narrative as a Political Shortcut: Algorithmic Mediation and Executive Legitimacy beyond Party and Oligarchy in Indonesia” Rasyid Juhari
“Preacher’s Panem: The Introduction of Stealth Influencers in Malaysia’s Green Wave”- Ong Jiayun Elvin
“Podcasting Power: How Political Parties in an Electoral Autocracy Persuade Voters in the Modern Era”
Room [LHS-TR38-B1-04] - Chinese Communities and Colonial Power in British Malaya
- Chair/Presenter
Jeremy Goh
“Saving and Spending of the Many: Deposits, Cheques, and Chinese Banking in British Malaya” Cheng Hao Tian 程昊天
“Navigating Restriction: The Malayan Chinese Rubber Industry’s Response to the Stevenson Scheme (1922–1928)”
Room [LHS-TR40-B1-03] - Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia: Identity, Culture, and Economy
- Chair/Presenter
Audrey Heijns
“The Chinese on Bangka and Billiton: A Case Study of an Early Hakka Dictionary (1912)” - Cheng Chen
“Beyond Fixed Identities: Facilitating Pluralism through Participatory Learning in Singapore” - Rundong Zhang
“A Study on Chaxugeju in ‘Loose Structured’ among Yunnanese Chinese in Northern Thailand”
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza level 2
Room [ABS-02-SR5] -Sacredness in Transience: An Exploration of Non-Places in Christian Religious Practices
- Presenter/ Chair
Mark Inigo M. Tallara
“Rethinking Sacred Space in Non-Places: An Analysis of the Aesthetic and Environmental Design in Understanding Religious Experience in Shopping Malls in the Philippines” - Linda Bustan
“The Megachurch, the Small Church, and the Non-Place: Negotiating Identity in the mall-based churches in Surabaya (Indonesia)” - Leonard Yeo
“Sanctifying the Secular: Weekday Catholic Worship in Singapore’s Central Business District as Reimagined Sacred Spaces”
Room [ABS-02-SR6] - ASEAN Norms, Institutions, and External Relations
Chair
Tan Rui Lie, EugeneMyat Sandar Zaw
“From Strategic Conduct to Regional International Society-Building: Reframing ASEAN’s Hedging Strategy through the English School”Zefei Zhang
“Signal Anchoring, Audience Pressure, and the Evolution of ASEAN Cooperation”Ki-Hyun Bae
“Does ASEAN lead its Dialogue Partnership? ASEAN’s External Relations Strategies and Practices”Zhang Yun
“From Regional Practice to South Template: The Diffusion of ASEAN Multilateralism and the Shaping of Global South’s Cooperation”
Room [ABS-02-SR8] - Labour, Migration Corridors, and Transnational Work Regimes
Chair
Yi Shiang HuNandito Oktaviano
“From Downstreaming to Work Discipline: IMIP as a Transnational Labour Regime and Worker Agency”Aniello Iannone
“Unequal Exchange at Sea: Vertical Transnational Labour Control and Indonesian Migrant Fishers in Taiwan’s Distant-Water Fishing”Vera Bararah Barid
“Beyond Borders, Beyond Protection: Human Rights Challenges Faced by Non-Procedural Indonesian Migrant Workers Abroad”- Hew Tse Hou
“Re-Governing Pre-Departure Training in the Myanmar–Malaysia Labour Migration Corridor: A TVET, Skills Recognition, and AI-Assisted Multilingual Access Study”
Room [ABS-02-SR10] - Agriculture, Urban Economies, and Structural Transformation
Chair
Wai Man Natalie WongJose Ma Luis Montesclaros
“Revisiting discourses in structural and agricultural transformation in Southeast Asia”Rafael Jose Marquez Noel
“Street food, class, and the city: Regimes of legibility in the Philippines and Singapore”Lidya Kandowangko
“Livelihood Strategies of Women Street Vendors Amid Urban Coastal Development in Manado, Indonesia”Emma Willoughby
“Uncovering the Politics of “Wet Markets” through Comparative Urban History in Vietnam”
[Roundtable Discussion] - Room ABS-02-SR11 - Forms of Agency in Southeast Asia's Regional Order-Building
- Chair
Evelyn Goh
Australian National University - Discussant
Sarah Teo
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore - Bich Tran
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU Singapore - Tommy Sheng Hao Chai
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University - Emirza Adi Syailendra
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore - Matteo Piasentini (coauthored with Aries Arugay)
University of the Philippines Diliman
UOB Innovation Hub level B1
Room [LHS-TR36-B1-02] - Performance, Ritual, and Material Religion
- Chair
Aron L. Garchitorena - Wenny Dhaniyati
“From the Sign to the Spice: The Production of Islamic Space in Padang Restaurants” - Yu-sheng Lin
“Material Networks and Ritual Aesthetics in Bangkok’s Navaratri Festival” - Ruoyi Liu
“An Ecological Study of Wayang Kulit Kelantan: A Case Study of Wayang Kulit Troupe Kumpulan Sri Campuran” - Putu Dinda Ayudia
“Contested time-regime: Layered-calendrical system and Balinese distinctive conception of working time” - Xue Cheng
“The Cultural and Political Functions of Buddhist Alms Giving (Dāna) in the Modern Laos Society”
Room [LHS-TR38-B1-04] -Indonesian Foreign Policy and Cultural Diplomacy
- Chair
Mehmet Furkan Ergül - Presenter/Backup Chair
Li Mingjiang - Indira Zahra Aridati
“Putting Its Eggs in All the Baskets: Indonesia’s Expanding Foreign Policy Under Prabowo Subianto” - Prima Nurahmi Mulyasari
“Institutionalizing Indonesian Gastrodiplomacy in Singapore: The Case of Komunitas Rasa Indonesia”
Room [LHS-TR40-B1-03] - Sport, Urban Space, and Physical Culture
- Chair
Veronica L. Gregorio - Alfi Ulayya Syarafina, Atika Najwa Firdaus and Fardilla Rizqiyah
“Urban Streets as a Blood Circulatory System: Examining Emergency Mobility Negotiation during Car-Free Day in Suburban Jombang, Indonesia” - Anagatasya Dea Fahirah Divastuti
“Strategy for Increasing Vitality of Non-Metropolitan Cities in Southeast Asia at Public Transportation Nodes Based on Force Identification”
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza level 2
Room [ABS-02-SR5] - Il/Liberalism and the Analysis of Democracy in Southeast Asia
- Chair / Discussant
Mark Thompson - Anthony Lawrence Borja
“Illiberal Political Values in Southeast Asia: Measuring Political Illiberalism in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines” - Rommel Curaming
“Liberal Assumptions in Analysis of Democracy in Indonesia: Analytic and Political Consequences” - Aldi Nur Fadil Auliya
“Authoritarian Choices, Agrarian Consequences: Diverging the Fate of Land Reform Paths in the Philippines and Indonesia”
Room [ABS-02-SR6] - Manuscripts as Microcosms: The Dynamics of Interlinear Translation in Indonesia
- Chair/Presenter
Keiko Kamiishi
“Translating Women and Desire in The Marriage of Arjuna: Across Java and Bali in the Reception of Old Javanese Poetry” - Fadhli Lukman
“Arabic–Malay Grammatical Mediation in Minangkabau: Manuscript Evidence and Oral Continuities” - Muhammad Dluha Luthfillah
“The Grammar of Absence: Gendered Identities in an 18th-century Javanese Quran Translation” - Mery Tambaria Damanik Ambarita
“Writing on Bamboo, Translating on Paper: Batak Epistolary Manuscripts
Room - [ABS-02-SR8] - Reimagining The Past to the Future: Recreation of the Tradition in Contemporary Cultural Expression of Mainland Southeast Asia
- Chair/Presenter
Chairat Polmuk
“Myth, Media, Phimai: Reimagining a Thai-Khmer Sacred Landscape” - Saranpat Boonhok
“Roboticizing the Ramakien: The Reinvention of Posthuman Bodies and Thainess in the Animated Film Mantra Warrior” - Chari Hamratanaphon
“Verses of Fate: Reframing Truyện Kiều through Fortune-Telling in Contemporary Vietnam” - Tongchen Hou
“The Recasting of Evil: Burmese Ravana (Dathagiri) in Chit Oo Nyo’s Novel Lingadipa’s Romantic”
Room [ABS-02-SR10] - Southeast Asia's Checkered Pasts: Ambivalent Narratives and the Making of Nation-States
Chair/Presenter
Zardas Shuk-man Lee
“Victor Purcell and the Quest for Malaya’s Independence in the 1950s”Quah Say Jye
“Bilahari Kausikan and the Idea of Asia”Ponpavi Sangsuradej
“Environmental Governance and the International Making of the Thai–Myanmar Borderlands”Ian Christopher B. Alfonso
“Nationalizing Colonial Legacies: The Case of the 2019 Singapore Bicentennial and the 2021 Quincentennial Commemorations in the Philippines”
UOB Innovation Hub level B1
Room [LHS-TR36-B1-02] - The Geopolitics of Building Regional Supply Chains in the Age of Strategic Competition in Southeast Asia
Chair/Presenter
Jewellord T. Nem Singh
“Foreign Investment Regimes and the Politics of Coalition Building the Mining Industry in Southeast Asia”Julie de Los Reyes
“Renegotiating Extractive Hierarchies: The State, Geopolitics and Nickel Downstreaming in the Philippines”Ling Chen
“Seeking Resilience: Divergent Investment Patterns of China’s New Energy Vehicle Industry in Southeast Asia”
Room [LHS-TR-38-B1-04] - ASEAN Centrality, Indo-Pacific Order, and Minilateral Agency
Chair
Reenah TamilarasuShuqi Wang
“Repositioning ASEAN Centrality through Institutional Layering: Managerial Adaptation under Deterrence-Oriented Minilaterals”Akriti Khajuria
“Whose Indo-Pacific? ASEAN Centrality, Minilateral Agency, and the Contest over Regional Order”Shristi Pukhrem
“Reclaiming the Core: ASEAN Centrality in the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific and India’s Act East Policy”
Room [LHS-TR40-B1-03] -Small State Security and Strategic Responses to Great Power Competition
Chair
VaishaliMatteo Piasentini
“The Domestic Drivers of Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific: a Small State Perspective”Mohammad Istiaq Jawad
“Foreign Policy under Pressure: Myanmar’s Engagement with China”Akon Md. Saifullah
“How Do Small States Hedge? Unveiling Bangladesh’s Strategic Policies towards China”Julius Ong
“ASEAN-Japan Maritime Security Cooperation in the 21st Century: Why and How?”
Wee Cho Yaw Plaza level 2
Room [ABS-02-SR5] - Great Power Competition and ASEAN State Alignments
- Chair
Adam Knee - Mehmet Furkan Ergül
“ASEAN Nations’ Neutrality in the Great Power Competition: An Analysis Based on the Representational Relations Theory” - Daniele Carminati
“Southeast Asia’s US-China Dilemma: Resistance or Masked Choice?” - Yoonah Oh
“From Alignment Choices to Strategic Assessments: Locating the True Agency of Southeast Asian States in Great Power Politics” - Dharendra Wardhana and Danifansen Simanjuntak
“Rising Influence, Partial Substitution: China, the United States, and the Provision of Global Public Goods in Southeast Asia”
Room [ABS-02-SR6] - South China Sea Disputes and Maritime Security
- Chair
Sharon Ndoen - Saptopo Bambang Ilkodar and Siti Darwinda Mohamed Pero
“Regional Regime Failures: An Analysis of ASEAN’s Ineffectiveness in Dealing with Preah Vihear Temple Ownership Dispute” - Mochammad Arif
“Analysing Indonesia’s Silence on the South China Sea Issue” - Yongwook Ryu
“A Rule-based Maritime Order versus an Existential Threat? Japan’s Evolving Perception of the South China Sea and its Impact on Maritime Order” - Tan Rui Lie, Eugene
“Between Consensus and Constraint: The Myth of the Mighty ASEAN Chair”
Room [ABS-02-SR8] - Indonesia's Security Posture: Defence Diplomacy, Arms Procurement, and Strategic Signalling
- Chair
Shuqi Wang - Muhamad Arif
“Indonesia’s Agency in Defence Diplomacy: Rethinking Order in Southeast Asia” - Alfin Febrian Basundoro
“Forging Strategic Autonomy: Indonesia’s Arms Procurement Policy and the Logic of Hedging”
Room [ABS-02-SR10] - Sovereignty, Smallness, and Governance Models
Chair/Presenter
Minh Son To
“Smallness as insecurity of scale: The territorial deficit and connectivity geopoltiics in Laos and Singapore”Vaishali
“Constructing ‘Security Centrality’ in the Indian Ocean Region: An India-ASEAN model for Multilateral Regional Governance”Jialin Zhu
“Singapore as a Method: An Inconvenient Model for Pursuing the Common Good”
UOB Innovation Hub level B1
Room [LHS-TR36-B1-02] - Diplomacy and the Building of Regional Order in Southeast Asia
Chair
Shristi PukhremPatrick James Serra
“Mitigating the Spread of Pestilence: Philippine Diplomacy in Global Disease Control Initiatives, 1946- 1978”Sharon Li-Lian Seah
“Containing Communism, Constructing Regionalism: ASEAN’s Diplomacy Towards Indochina 1975-1978”Shintaro Hamanaka
“Do Asian-style international relations and institutions exist?”Simon Creak
“Regional Sports under Fire: Consolidating the South East Asia Peninsular (SEAP) Games (1961-75)”
Room [LHS-TR38-B1-04] - Women, Violence, and Gendered Agency
Chair/Presenter
Asra Virgianita
“Marginalizing Gender in Indonesia’s South–South Cooperation: Patriarchy, Politics, and Structural Challenges”Ieshika Banerjee
“The Engineered Violence: Engendered violence on Rohingya Women and the Gendered Architecture of Ethnic Nationalism in Myanmar”Borei Heang
“Virtue in Controversy: Khmer Didactic Poems, Gendered Culture, and Women’s Liminal Identity”Huiyi Huang
“Humanizing childbirth in China: childbirth governance and limites of regional frameworks”
Room [LHS-TR40-B1-03] - Finance, Social Enterprise, and Inclusive Growth
Chair
Dewa Ayu Putu Eva WisMelanie V Cabotaje
“Beyond Transactions: Philippine Social Enterprises as Catalysts of Inclusive Transformation”Ting Huang
“Timor-Leste’s Integration Paradox: Remittance Dependency, Dutch Disease, and the Post-ATIGA Economic Landscape”Kris Hartley
“Interrogating the cultivated ignorance of Western technocracy: the global sustainability agenda in Southeast Asia”Chonghyun Choi
“Southeast Asian Political Economy: Beyond Western and Northeast Asian Models”- Hana Shirai
“Intra-Group Structure and Developmental Divergence in Thailand’s OTOP System: Implications for More Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth”
General Information
Panel allocations and speaker participation are subject to change as the event date approaches. Presenting participants will be notified directly once allocations are finalised, and the programme schedule will be updated accordingly.
Panels generally have 3–4 papers/presenters; each paper/presenter should plan for 15–20 minutes of sharing to allow time for Q&A.
All rooms will have a microphone, speakers, and a projector. Presenters may prepare slides, video, audio, and/or handouts; however, setup and distribution will count as part of your allocated time. Please bring your own laptop and HDMI adapter.