On 15 December 2023, CSDS and MAIDS-GRID joined the International Migrants Day. The presentation title was “Climate change, agrarian change and conflict: A scoping study on recent migration between Myanmar and Thailand”.
Further details on the program of the launch can be found here.
A recording of the full program can be viewed here.
WriteShop on “Shifting Practices and Experiences of Development Cooperation in Southeast Asia: Understanding Local Voice and Agency”
Introduction
Since the new Millennium, the development cooperation landscape has drastically changed in Southeast Asia. Actors providing, receiving, influencing and affected by development cooperation have diversified. So too has the forms and tools of development cooperation, for example South-South cooperation including by China and India, climate funds, philanthropic foundations, and global vertical funds (Mawdsley 2017). The financial volume of new contributions has grown to outpace that of earlier Western donors. Such a shift has led to what Greenhill et al. (2013) describe as a new ‘age of choice’ in which countries of the Global South are provided with a range of development cooperation options to choose from for financing their development. Yet, in reality, the variety of opportunities differ greatly between countries in the Global South, depending on their economic/ geopolitical ‘credentials’ (Fuchs and Quante 2021; Waisbich et al. 2021). Furthermore, as donors pursue their (national) interests through development cooperation, so-called 'donor competition' has intensified (Fuchs et al. 2013), including in Southeast Asia in recent years (Liao and Dang 2020; Liao and Katada 2021).
Existing development studies literature on donor competition predominantly focuses on the accounts of financiers and providers, for example their motivations and processes of competition. Far less attention is paid to the perspectives and agency of local actors in Southeast Asia, including the diverse voices within governments, as well as civil society and impacted communities (see Sato et al. 2011). As a consequence, less is studied on how local actors evaluate and understand the shifting practices and experiences of development cooperation in Southeast Asia: and in particular, how they see opportunities and challenges within the changing development cooperation landscape to address what they define as their development challenges – and the very meaning of ‘development’. Exploring the local voice and agency in development cooperation is salient at this critical juncture as the crises of climate shock, pandemic, and the war in Ukraine have not only aggravated existing development challenges in the region but also shape the very dynamic development cooperation landscape in the region.
WriteShop program
This WriteShop hosted paper presentations submitted to the earlier call for papers (here for full details). The full program was as follows:
Field visit
The WriteShop participants were invited to a community field visit to Khun Samut Chin village, Samut Prakarn Province. The field visit offered the opportunity to learn about coastal erosion and land subsidence, and the impacts on residing communities including regarding land rights, access to natural resources, and forced displacement.
This was a public seminar in person co- organized by the Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS), Chulalongkorn University; Chulalongkorn University UNESCO Chair in Resource Governance and Futures Literacy; and China Dialogue Trust.
Please see the full agenda here.
A recorded vide can be found here.
Carl Middleton from CSDS was the moderator for a panel discussion on “A Bridge Over Troubled Water: Anticipating and Reimagining the Future of Rivers in Southeast Asia”. This was a panel for the International Conference of Chulalongkorn University’s Futures Literacy Week. You can find more information about Chulalongkorn’s University Futures Literacy here.
The full panelist for the event are:
Chol Bunnag, Assistant Professor and Director, Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)
Pianporn Deetes, Thailand and Myanmar Campaigns Director, International Rivers
Saw John Bright, Water Program Manager, Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN)
Raymond Yu Wang, Associate Professor, Center for Social Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology
Tarek Ketelsen, Director General, Australia – Mekong Partnership for Environmental Resources and Energy Systems (AMPERES)
Yong Ming Li, Fellow, East West Center
Moderator
Carl Middleton, Director, Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University
The full event is below.
Carl Middleton from CSDS was one of the speakers for the online webinar organized by Metropolis Asia-Pacific titled “Report on the UN Climate Change Conference and the Impact of Climate Change on Migration in South East Asia”.
The full panelist for the event are:
Opening remarks: Imelda M. Nicolas, Former Cabinet Secretary, Commission on Filipinos Overseas, Co- convener, Metropolis- Asia
Moderator: Tasneen Sidiqui, University of Dhaka, Banglades
Closing Remarks: Binod Khadria, Former Professor, Jwaharlal Nehru Univ, Indida, Co- convener, Metropolis- Aisa
Speakers: Ouvais Samad, Deputy Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), Bonn, Germany Kristin Marie Dadey, Chief of Mission, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Manila, Philippines Carl Middleton, Director, Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS), Chulalaongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
A recording of the event can be found here
On Monday, 22nd February 2021, Carl Middleton from Center for Social Development Studies, was one of the presenters for CRISEA Final Conference – Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia: The Project and its Findings. Carl presented the research on “Southeast Asia and China: Transnational Water Issues on the Mekong”.
Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia (CRISEA) is an interdisciplinary research project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme that studies multiple forces affecting regional integration in Southeast Asia and the challenges they present to the peoples of Southeast Asia and its regional institutional framework, ASEAN.
You can watch the video of the conference on the link here.
On Wednesday, 29 July 2020, Center for Social Development Studies at the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University organized a panel discussion focusing on the issue of social justice and air pollution. It was a Public Session organized for the International Conference on New research in international development, human rights, and international relations at a time of disruption.
The discussion examined how various economic, social and political inequalities intersect in relation to air pollution in terms of its creation and exposure, and the consequences for individuals, families and society as-a-whole.
Presentation Files:
“COVID-19 and Haze: Implications on Health, Fires, and Social Justice” by Dr. Helena Varkkey, Department of Strategic and International Studies, University of Malaya
“From Maize to Haze” by Daniel Hayward, Regional Centre for Social Science and Sustainable Development, Chiang Mai University
“Right to Clean Air in Thailand's Time of Pandemic” by Tara Buakamsri, Greenpeace Southeast Asia
“PMHAZE a People's Movement to Stop Haze” by Benjamin Tay, PM Haze
The panel was chaired by Asst. Prof. Dr. Carl Middleton from the Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.
If you missed the discussion, or if you want to revisit, you can watch the discussion below.
