If you're looking for an academic Chinese Politics job, apply to this one: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQT568/a...

The Strait of Hormuz is closed just as spring planting starts. Here's a quick illustrated guide on how 'warflation' will make your food more expensive later this year: newsletter.rajpatel.org/p/how-the-wa...

By "non-hegemony", I wonder if the authors are really making a case about the anarchical society?

The $16.6 trillion in net assets held by private funds in 2025 were ultimately managed by just four thousand registered advisors. New from Lenore Palladino, on the unregulated finance at the heart of the American economy. www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/fin...

Please join in person at MIT on Friday, February 27 for a fantastic lineup of speakers—including Prakash Kumar, Sigrid Schmalzer, Micah Muscolino, Benjamin Siegel, and Heather Roller—exploring conservation, ecology, and food production in China&India. Hope to see you there!

At the artisanal oilfields of Wonocolo again late in the afternoon.

A lot of claims recently about the emergence of "tech feudalism". Regular (garden variety...?) "feudalism" in contemporary times seems overlooked. "Civil oligarchy" may be interlocked with modernization processes, but not all oligarchs are civil or perhaps even see themselves as civilians.

Misty morning here

Hi @tompepinsky.com from cosmopolitan rural Java where many millions persist in the countryside (often with migratory experiences) and few protest vote against urban chauvinism... 🤔

"...the inclination among some senior clergy is to blame a few bad eggs for misbehaviour in the monkhood, rather than organisational failings that permit so-called “mafia monks” to thrive." www.economist.com/asia/2026/01...

Back

Back in Adelaide briefly. Happy New Year to all!

Almost 400 household surveys... Not yet finished. Some elusive larger landholders remain.

My new book, The Division of Rationalized Labor, is now shipping! A brief summary of the argument to follow…

Hi All! The new issue of Journal of Agrarian Change (25:4) is out now with an entirely open access special section on Land and Labour in Indonesia (among other goodies)... please do check it out: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14710366...

Cropland area nearly doubled in South America between 2000 and 2019 - the largest relative increase in the world. Soybean production replaced rainforests, grasslands & savannas. earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/14962... As China refuses U.S. soybeans, this puts more pressure on natural ecosystems.

Without peasants, the global economy could not function, and our natural systems would collapse. Life still depends on the peasantry, and we are all affected by the fact that it is today in an acute crisis

Enjoyed this post by Masayuki Yanagisawa and agree with his point about asking big questions. I also like the comparative photo arrangements! newsletter.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/nl-83/yan... @cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp

My first-ever, single-authored article is out in the Journal of Peasant Studies! Comparing sugar and infrastructure frontiers, it explores how technologies of dispossession shape frontier-making and state power in Indonesia across scale and time. Read it here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

It’s August, which means a new issue of Mekong Review 🥳 In this issue: young K-pop stans in Myanmar join resistance efforts, the contestation of Indonesia’s history, an interview with Saigon Soul Revival… and more! Order online: ko-fi.com/s/a3e8a4c60d

www.abc.net.au/religion/anu... Good piece by Nick Cheesman from my old department at ANU @ouranu.bsky.social

My first book, Socializing Land: Plantations, Dispossession, and Resistance in Laos (University of Hawai'i Press, 2025), exists in this world! Check it out at: uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/social... 1/4

My take on the recent protests in Indonesia www.newmandala.org/mass-protest...

Honoured to have won this award. Thanks to @edwardaspinall.bsky.social for supervising me, my committee members Ben Kerkvliet and Jim Fox for their continuous support over the years, and the ASAA award panel @asiancurrents.bsky.social

foreignpolicy.com/podcasts/one... Good episode on seed banks and the emergence of seeds as intellectual property. Very much agree on public funding, @adamtooze.bsky.social

Could the origins of macan cisewu's style be from this kind of promotion found in a 1918 edition of Oetoesan Hindia? Or perhaps there are earlier ones? Am I mistaken in seeing the resemblance?

In a day interrupted with meetings it is great to briefly escape to microfilm. Wonder if the Gothic typeface for Oetoesan Hindia's masthead points to organicist influences?

Interesting post on @newmandala.bsky.social www.newmandala.org/instagrammin...

Join our ANU Indonesia Institute for the 2025 Tony and Yohanni Johns Lecture. 🇮🇩 This annual lecture honours the legacies of Tony and Yohanni Johns, who pioneered Indonesian language learning in Australia. Find out more and register via this link: quicklink.anu.edu.au/708x

New working paper from me & some colleagues on East Africa's maize markets from c. 1900 to today, based on a major data collection effort to fill in the long-run history of food prices in one of the world's poorest regions: www.aehnetwork.org/working-pape...

Happy to share this new piece in Food Policy documenting the wide policy uptake of the 6 dimensions of food security framework (incl. agency and sustainability). co-authored with colleagues @williamgmoseley.bsky.social, Paola Termine, & Barbara Burlingame www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@mklaz.bsky.social Miles Kenney-Lazar's book is out!! 👏🏼 I have to say the cover is one of the coolest I've seen in awhile... uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/social...

In Praise of Floods by James C. Scott was featured in a new review essay from @bostonreview.bsky.social.

New article, with Ibrahim Suffian and Ted Lee: "Malaysia’s Democratic Deficit: Why Youth May Not Be the Answer." (Abbreviated abstract: not all youth are politically "progressive.") This piece was looong in coming – so all the happier to see it finally in print! www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

This week we have members of the Agroecology Research-Action Collective ( @adamcalo.bsky.social , Maywa Montenegro de Wit , @beniuliano.bsky.social , @alastairiles.bsky.social ) taking on the productivist roots of the "feed-the-world" approach to food security. spectrejournal.com/the-enduring...

Three years and a movement: how farmers defeated the land grab by India’s Karnataka state peoplesdispatch.org/2025/07/19/t...

An open access paper I wrote on differentiated Suharto nostalgia in rural Java for a Journal of Agrarian Change special issue on land and labour in Indonesia: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

newbooksnetwork.com/for-the-sake... Great to talk with @dresslerwolfram.bsky.social about "For the Sake of Forests and Gods" on @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social !

NEW 🇹🇭 In "Memory Complex", an empty Bangkok shophouse becomes home to artworks that provide a potent reminder of the sacrifices made for the possibility of democracy in Thailand. By Tyrell Haberkorn (@turtelista.bsky.social) www.newmandala.org/art-in-a-tim...

The same keyword can mean dignity to one group and dispossession to another. Land politics isn’t just about land—it’s about who gets to define the terms. www.tni.org/en/article/p...

New research on the political economy of Nusantara, Indonesia'a new planned capital city. Come for the political economy, stay for the Moby Dick references.

My latest feature is out: As the world has warmed, the regional flaws of climate models have grown apparent. Meanwhile, methods to localize the results of models have proliferated. It all leads to lots of uncertainty -- within a very certain global trend. And cities need answers now.

Reading & enjoying @lesleyhead.bsky.social in her new book Beyond Green. Bold Aust focus esp special possibilities of Indig ways to care for Country. Recommend @finnarne.me @dollyjorgensen.bsky.social

In this piece I look at recent Thai-China activity following the kidnapping of a Chinese celebrity on the Thai-Myanmar border. The measures are unlikely to arrest the growth of the scam centres. @anubellschool.bsky.social eastasiaforum.org/2025/05/22/c...

New working paper, with @a2hicken.bsky.social and @edwardaspinall.bsky.social: "New Patterns of Urban Political Reform in SE Asia." What can 18 SE Asian cities tell us about the likelihood and character of urban reform? We dive in here. Thanks to our fab research team and GLD! tinyurl.com/3eur93v5

Evening stroll view...