Asia Institute - Research Publications
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ItemLanguage shift and maintenance in the Korean community in Australia(International Journal of Korean Language Education, 2016)
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ItemRestoring the Place of Imagination in Education: How to escape the trap of rationality-based realism(Index Copernicus, 2022-06-30)Henri Corbin accorded the imagination its own unique and important noetic or cognitive function, giving us access to an ontological sphere that without imagination remains closed and forbidden to us. Meanwhile, for rationalist science philosophy, as Corbin notes, the imagination has long been understood as nothing but the unreal, the mythic, the marvellous, the fictive and fanciful. In this paper I argue that rationalist modernism, along with mass education in keeping with this modernist ‘spirit of the times’ has led to a collective imprisonment within the real, the concrete, and robbed us of the capacity to reflect and transform ourselves and our relationship to the world. This state of affairs will ensure humanity’s rapid demise given the challenges we now face, that is, unless we can reinstate the faculty of imagination within scientific epistemology and in education, and thus escape our entrapment.
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ItemVulnerable but Resilient: Indonesia in an Age of Democratic Decline(Routledge, 2022-11-25)Recent years have seen a consensus emerging that Indonesian democracy is in regression. Nonetheless, there continue to be developments that point towards Indonesia’s democratic resilience. This article examines key events of the past year that support resilience, including the passing of the landmark Law on Sexual Violence, the rejection of rumoured plans to extend President Joko Widodo’s term in office and a moderation of polarisation. At the same time, Indonesian democracy remains vulnerable, illustrated by legal developments that undermine executive accountability, ongoing militarisation in Papua, as well as persistent pressure in areas of freedom of expression and minority rights. The article will conclude with an examination of Jokowi’s efforts to secure his presidential legacy, particularly through infrastructure development and foreign policy. The article identifies two sources for democratic resilience—public opinion and elite support—and argues that while democratic decline continues, the process of regression is more uneven than commonly emphasised in assessments of Indonesian politics.
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ItemThe political economy of teacher management reform in Indonesia(Elsevier, 2018-07-01)Indonesia faces serious problems in the number, cost, quality and distribution of teachers. In recent years, its central government has introduced a range of reforms to address these problems but they have produced modest results. This paper suggests that this outcome reflects the way in which predatory political and bureaucratic elites have used the school system for decades to accumulate resources, distribute patronage, mobilize political support, and exercise political control rather than promote improved learning outcomes. Efforts to reduce teacher numbers, enhance teacher quality, and improve teacher distribution have accordingly constituted an assault on the interests of these elites, provoking powerful, if often subterranean, resistance. Broadly, reform has only occurred where the central government has employed policy instruments that have disciplined local governments and maintained a commitment to these instruments in the face of resistance. The paper concludes by assessing the implications for Indonesian education.
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ItemDiaspora organizations, political settlements, and the migration-development nexus: the case of the Indonesian Diaspora Network(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2022-09-08)This article examines the Indonesian Diaspora Network (IDN), an organization that seeks to ‘facilitate’ and ‘empower’ Indonesia’s diaspora and enhance its contribution to the country’s development. IDN portrays itself as an expression of the collective will of a unified and coherent Indonesian diaspora that is working to promote development-for-all, while critics suggest it is the instrument of elite and professional elements within the diaspora pursuing narrower interests and agendas. By contrast, this article suggests that IDN is a political settlement between these and other elements within the diaspora, each of which has distinct interests and agendas with regard to Indonesia’s development. Its impact on Indonesia’s development is consequently much less clear-cut than existing analyses suggest while also being contingent on processes of political and social struggle. In theoretical terms, the article encourages an understanding of diaspora organizations in terms of political settlements analysis.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableTransnational linkages, political dynamics, and the migration-development nexus: Towards a political settlements approach(Elsevier, 2020-10-01)This paper examines how transnational researchers have incorporated political dynamics into their analyses of transnational linkages and their impacts. It argues that they have done so in ways that have focused on conflict and contestation between migrant/diasporic communities and homeland states/communities rather than within them. At the same time, in construing transnational linkages as instruments of particular actors, they have presented a narrow conception of how transnational linkages interact with political dynamics. As an alternative, the paper proposes a political settlements approach which views transnational linkages as institutions embedded in power relationships between competing groups defined in class, racial, ethnic, religious and gender terms. This approach, it is argued, overcomes these two problems by presenting a more disaggregated view of the actors, interests and agendas involved and construing transnational linkages as simultaneously instruments and arenas of contestation.
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ItemGenome-wide meta-analyses reveal novel loci for verbal short-term memory and learning(SPRINGERNATURE, 2022-11)Understanding the genomic basis of memory processes may help in combating neurodegenerative disorders. Hence, we examined the associations of common genetic variants with verbal short-term memory and verbal learning in adults without dementia or stroke (N = 53,637). We identified novel loci in the intronic region of CDH18, and at 13q21 and 3p21.1, as well as an expected signal in the APOE/APOC1/TOMM40 region. These results replicated in an independent sample. Functional and bioinformatic analyses supported many of these loci and further implicated POC1. We showed that polygenic score for verbal learning associated with brain activation in right parieto-occipital region during working memory task. Finally, we showed genetic correlations of these memory traits with several neurocognitive and health outcomes. Our findings suggest a role of several genomic loci in verbal memory processes.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableHow coalitions of multiple actors advance policy in China: ecological agriculture at Danjiangkou(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2022-11-02)
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ItemVarying orientations to sharing life stories: A diachronic study of Japanese women's discourse(Cambridge University Press, 2022-09-06)Language change across the lifespan is relatively underexplored in sociolinguistics. While studies of individuals' language across life stages are often considered to complement large scale studies of community-level language change, this study aims to explore how changes to family environment and social mobility interact with individual speakers' stylistic practice across life stages. It examines ethnographic interviews of five women, originally from the same area in western Japan, the same high school, and similar socio-economic background, conducted by a single researcher eleven years apart. The chronological and inter-participant comparisons reveal a complex pattern of stylistic practice and stance taking as the women share stories about career, family and relationships with the researcher. The study also discusses audience design in language variation and explores how the participants utilise their discursive repertoires in their interaction with the researcher, whose background is significantly divergent from theirs. (Language across the lifespan, stylistic practice, Japanese)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableWhy did Australia lose international students to Canada?: Trends in Chinese students explained by numbers and their real voices(Society for Oceanian Education Studies, 2022-11-01)This paper attends to the voices of individual students, not the numerical "Chinese students" spoken of in statistics and other media, i.e., not the main source of income for the Australian higher education export industry, but as voices of students as individuals with their own personalities. While there are many studies and reports that quantify the impact of the pandemic on Australia's education export industry, few focus on the voices of actual international students. This paper presents the actual voices of Chinese international students, including what they have experienced, the choices they have had to make, and the emotions they have felt as a result of the pandemic. While the number of international students in countries such as Canada and the UK has been on the rise since late 2020, the number of students coming to Australia remains stagnant. The paper explores the reasons for this through the voices of Chinese students, which reveal a fundamental problem that Australia needs to face. It revisits what international students mean to Australia and re-examines the role of higher education institutions.