3rd Annual LIASE Southeast Asia Symposium at Puget Sound

TACOMA, Wash. – The clash between those who want “progress” and those who want the “preservation” of our environment is as stark, and in some ways, even more complex, in Southeast Asia as it is at home in the United States.

This fall, the third annual LIASE Southeast Asia Symposium at the University of Puget Sound will once again bring together Pacific Northwest scholars and students to help tackle these often sensitive and problematic differences.

The event, titled The Culture of Nature in Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia, will run Friday, Oct. 28–Saturday, Oct. 29, and is open to students and academics across the region. All events are also open to the public, except for a private dinner on Saturday night. Entrance is free to all, and registration is not required. Community visitors may particularly enjoy the free batik-making workshops on both days and the Indonesian music performance on Saturday night.

“This year marks our first faculty panel on Southeast Asia’s role in the liberal arts, as well as presentations by two exciting keynote speakers, two student research panels, a batik workshop, and a public gamelan performance,” said organizer Gareth Barkin, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Puget Sound. “We are looking forward to a great symposium.”

Southeast Asianist scholars and student researchers will share their findings and observations at the symposium to inspire further work to explore and understand conflicts between people and nature in a region where solutions are complicated by politics, poverty, big business, and aspirations populations undergoing rapid change.

The event is one of many activities at Puget Sound supported by the Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE). Backed by the Henry Luce Foundation, LIASE makes grants to universities and colleges around the country to promote a deeper understanding of Asian cultural, linguistic, and environmental issues. Symposium attendees will include campus members from the Northwest Five Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges, which serves as a forum for numerous collaborations.

Keynote speaker J. Peter Brosius, an influential ecological anthropologist from the University of Georgia, will give a free public talk at 5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 28, on the topic “Sea Gods and Social Movements: Environmental Activism in Southeast Asia.” Brosius has been at the forefront of efforts to transform the field of environmental anthropology. He has sought to foster interdisciplinary approaches to problems and make space for multiple ways of thinking about the complex trade-offs between conservation and development. His talk will span his celebrated career, including fieldwork in Sarawak, Malaysia, his interest in the Tolak Reklamasi ecological movement in Bali, Indonesia, and his ethnographic work in various sites in Southeast Asia.

The second keynote speaker is the internationally renowned Indonesian performance and graphic artist Arahmaiani. One of Indonesia’s most respected and iconic contemporary artists, Arahmaiani, has created provocative commentaries on cultural and environmental issues through installations, drawings, poetry, video, sculpture, dance, and music. Her free public presentation at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29, is titled Between the Mountain & the Sea. Her performances speak against social injustice, violence, political corruption, and women’s position in Muslim society.

On Saturday morning, students who took part in Puget Sound’s 2016 LIASE field school in Thailand will present their research under the guidance of Professor of International Political Economy Nick Kontogeorgopoulos. Topics range from deforestation to food insecurity, to organic agriculture, to changing generations in changing landscapes.

Southeast Asian experts from Willamette University, Lewis & Clark College, Whitman College, and The Evergreen State College will hold a Saturday afternoon panel discussing their current research and the relationship between Southeast Asian studies and teaching in the liberal arts.

Batik workshops, also open to the public, will be held 2:30–4:30 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday in Kittredge Hall. Instructors Lely Shim and Lisa Long will help participants use the wax relief and natural plant dyes to create their own batik artworks in the traditional Javanese style.

The symposium will finish with a private Indonesian banquet, followed by a free public performance of Indonesian music by Gamelan Pacifica. Everyone is welcome to the gamelan music concert in Rasmussen Rotunda, Wheelock Student Center, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29. Gamelan Pacifica, directed by noted composer and Cornish College of the Arts Professor of Music Jarrad Powell, creates diverse productions merging traditional and contemporary musical forms.

Each year the LIASE Southeast Asia Symposium attracts scholars, students, and faculty from the region to share their learning. The event draws together the disparate elements of the LIASE program at Puget Sound, including the Southeast Asian field schools, faculty research and initiatives, and the school’s new language programs, including Thai and Indonesian.

For more about the symposium and a program, visit pugetsound.edu/liase/2016-symposium.

For directions and a map of the University of Puget Sound campus: pugetsound.edu/directions 
For accessibility information, please contact accessibility@pugetsound.edu or 253.879.3236, or visit pugetsound.edu/accessibility.

Press photos of students on the 2016 LIASE field school trip to Thailand are available upon request.
Photos on page: From top right: Puget Sound students on the 2016 Thailand field schools trip: Megan Sanders '19 observes basket-weaving and Austin Bosworth '19, Megan Sanders '19, and Amanda Johnson '17 (on right) work in a field with Keala Yang; J. Peter Brosius; Arahmaiani performance artist; Gamelan Pacifica's instruments.

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