Category: Asia

  • Researching “Successful Ageing” as a Young Feminist Scholar in Thailand

    Researching “Successful Ageing” as a Young Feminist Scholar in Thailand

    How might a researcher’s own presence shape the stories that are told? In this blog post, Kullanit Nitiwarangkul, a PhD graduate from the Department of Media, Culture and Creative Industries at City and St. George’s University of London, reflects on her experience of researching women’s perceptions on what ‘successful ageing’ means in Thailand. The piece…

  • When Radio Sounds Like Home: Indigenous Community Radio and Epistemic Justice in India

    When Radio Sounds Like Home: Indigenous Community Radio and Epistemic Justice in India

    In this blog, Aniruddha Jena reflects on his recent research published in Third World Quarterly on Indigenous community radio in India. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at Radio Dhimsa in India’s Odisha, he explores how community radio can function as a space of epistemic justice, sustaining Indigenous language, cultural memory, and knowledge systems in the face…

  • How Kashmir Shaped an Early Model of Cultural Globalisation

    How Kashmir Shaped an Early Model of Cultural Globalisation

    In this piece academic Moin Aftab reflects on cultural globalisation and hybridisation in his birthplace, Kashmir. Moin, who’s research interests include Kashmir, Syria and the DAANES, explores how Kashmir’s art, religious traditions and architecture have been shaped by the region’s unique blend of influences. “We live in times where cultural globalisation is viewed as a…

  • Researching Extremism & Counterterrorism: A PhD Scholar’s Reflections on Self-Care

    Researching Extremism & Counterterrorism: A PhD Scholar’s Reflections on Self-Care

    What does it mean to study nationalism, migration, and “counterterrorism” online when you are not a distant observer but part of the very community under scrutiny? Mohammad Siddiqui is a PhD student in Political Science, reflects on the experience of studying the current, politically sensitive issues in the US and India as a scholar embedded…

  • Singing Bhakti: The Story Behind Heli

    Singing Bhakti: The Story Behind Heli

    In this Q&A Poshali Goel, a filmmaker and editor with a background in design based in Delhi, India, talks about her film Heli, which follows the lives of two siblings whose love for singing carries Bhakti poetry into both public and private worlds. Made as part of her master’s thesis, Heli explores gender dynamics and…

  • Lithium-ion Batteries and the Greenwashing of Extractivism

    Lithium-ion Batteries and the Greenwashing of Extractivism

    In this article, Global Souths Hub Editor and Website Curator Mira Mookerjee examines the sourcing process of minerals used in lithium-ion batteries – a technology that is allegedly moving us towards a greener future. By talking to activists and academics, including Nathan Andrews (Associate Professor, Political Science at McMaster University), Paulina Personius (Making Clean Energy…

  • Our Ocean, Our Future: A Wave of Reflections from the East Asian Seas Congress 2024

    Our Ocean, Our Future: A Wave of Reflections from the East Asian Seas Congress 2024

    From youth representation to regional action, this blog post by Queenie Agdalipe reflects on her journey as an ocean advocate at the East Asian Seas Congress 2024 — and how it revitalised her commitment to protecting our oceans and coastal communities. As an early career ocean professional (ECOP) from the Philippines, an archipelagic country defined by…

  • Modi’s Populist Performance of Eco-Masculinity

    Modi’s Populist Performance of Eco-Masculinity

    In this blog post, Ananya Sharma, Assistant Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University, India, looks at Narendra Modi’s carefully constructed eco-masculine persona and delves into what lies behind the performance. On March 4 2025, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Vantara, the world’s largest private wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and conservation centre located in…

  • Does China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI) Provide the Conditions for Solidarity and Delinking?

    Does China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI) Provide the Conditions for Solidarity and Delinking?

    In this blog post Yue Zhou (Joe) Lin, a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Bristol, reflects on the discussions that took place at last year’s International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy (IIPPE) annual conference. Yue Zhou’s detailed analysis looks at how the Belt Road Initiative’s ongoing transformation and BRICS nations are changing the…

  • Limits of Autocratisation: Democratic Resistance and Opposition – a TWQ Special Issue

    Limits of Autocratisation: Democratic Resistance and Opposition – a TWQ Special Issue

    While authoritarianism continues to gain ground globally, this Special Issue of Third World Quarterly, titled Limits of autocratisation: actors and institutions of democratic resistance and opposition, challenges the idea that autocratisation is an unstoppable tide. It shifts the focus from how autocracies rise to how and where they are contested—and sometimes reversed. Drawing from rich…