Institute for Culture and Society

The Institute for Culture and Society has over 50 HDR candidates, many of whom are researching in the area of Asia. Some of these students are:

Luh Micke Anggraini

Exploring Balinese Sense of Place: A Tourism Planning Perspective

Micke is undertaking an ethnographic study on local sense of place at tourist places in Bali, Indonesia. Her research is particularly looking at place attachment and identity of traditional desa adat communities, and the implications to tourism planning and development policy.

Giulia Dal Maso

Risky Expertise? Haigui returnee migrants in the Shanghai financial market

Giulia's interest focuses on the way in which financialisation is emerging in China and the way it is represented through the development of an economic and cultural imaginary. In particular, her dissertation analyses tensions between diverse understandings of ‘expertise’ held by different actors investing in the Shanghai stock exchange. In Shanghai, financialisation is creating a ‘stock fever’ that has engulfed the whole society in a competitive game of the financial market transcending the boundaries between rich and poor, formal and informal, urban and rural.

Andrea Del Bono

Identities Outside the Box: Italianness and Chineseness in Contemporary Sydney

Andrea’s study, supervised by Professor Ien Ang and Professor Greg Noble, deals with the effects of Chinese (and Italian) transnational networks in the city of Sydney and the possible alternative and creative understandings of ethnicity that we might gain from the exploration of Chineseness (and Italianness) in commercial ethnic businesses in Dixon Street.

Kecia Fong

Challenging Conservation: Negotiating Space, History, and Culture

Kecia’s work investigates the construction of heritage in contemporary Myanmar, Burma, as a site of rapid regional development, transculturation, and worlding practices. She examines the dialectic between quotidian, national, regional and international constructions of heritage where the material and social intersect. In particular she is focused upon built heritage and the evolving discourse and practices of the conservation sector in Myanmar at a time when Asia is increasingly turning to its own models as referents to be emulated and advanced.

Above: Downtown Yangon looking towards Sule Pagoda, December 2012.  Photo: Kecia Fong.

Laura Kraak

Dynamics of Cultural and Human Rights in the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage

Laura is researching the relationship between cultural heritage and human rights in Myanmar. Myanmar is currently undergoing major changes, including opening up for development and tourism. Laura is investigating the impact these changes have on the preservation of Myanmar's cultural heritage, specifically, the role of human rights in this process.

Bettina Röesler

Residing in Cosmopolitan Space(s) – Artist Residencies and Asia-Australia Relations

Bettina is exploring cultural diplomacy and arts exchanges between Australia and Asian countries, in particular the Asialink Arts Residency Program which sends around 40 artists, writers and arts managers to various destinations in Asia. The main interests of the dissertation are the tensions arising between theoretical policy discourses and realities of the work done by arts practitioners. Moreover, questions around the value of culture and its capacities to enable social change are investigated.

Kearrin Sims

In the Shadow of a Rising China: Chinese Regionalism in Southeast Asia's Least Developed Countries

Kearrin's work examines the growth of East Asian, specifically Chinese, investment and development assistance into the small, land-locked country of Laos. His interests are around the ways in which 'the rise of Asia' and growing Asian regional connectivity are re-shaping prevailing development discourses and practices within Laos. Kearrin has spent more than 10 months in Laos during his candidature and has published across a number of different mediums. More information on Kearrin’s research is available on his website (opens in a new window).

Above: Kearrin Sims in Laos.

Jacqueline Willis

A Tale of Two Globalisations: Policy, Culture and Nationalism in Divided Korea

Jacqueline's research juxtaposes North Korea’s Juche (self-reliance) ideology with South Korea’s Segyehwa (Koreanisation) policy. Situating Korea within a ‘one nation, two states’ paradigm and drawing on the cultural artefacts of ‘the exhibition’ and ‘music and performance,’ it explores what the case of divided Korea reveals about the association between policy and culture. It also traces some of the historical and lingering factors accounting for the proactive positions held by the North and South on foreign engagement and globalisation.