“To remain in place without the means to move is to experience a narrowing of possible futures.” Emma Goldrick on how distance in Australia is political.

“During Lula’s current term, after a long period of stagnation, the Brazilian economy grew about 3% and the unemployment rate declined by 3.5%. And yet, the polls are suggesting this won’t be enough to guarantee an easy reelection.” NEW by @rugitsky.bsky.social phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bra...

So nice to see this piece out with @jacktaggart.bsky.social @policyrelevant.bsky.social and Peter Dauvergne on global environmental governance in a fracturing liberal political economy... We talk about climate, food and plastics governance as liberal norms erode...

“In Argentina and Brazil, the economic transformation led by the giant grain traders increased the countries’ foreign vulnerability at the same time as it sowed the seeds of anti-democratic politics.” @rugitsky.bsky.social on the world-shaping business of soy www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/soy...

OBITUARY: "Vince Rafael exemplified the onset of a long overdue shift in the intellectual centre of gravity in Southeast Asian Studies to new generations of scholars hailing from the region...his work was distinctive in its close attention to identity, ideology, and experience."

#OpenAccess from @jeas-journal.bsky.social#OpenAccess- Myth and Measurement: Spatial Heterogeneity, Ecological Fallacy, and the Urban Narrative in Peninsular Malaysia’s Electoral Politics - https://cup.org/4q8eI77 - Tyler Rongxuan Chen #FirstView

Remembering is resistance. On International Day of Peasant Struggles, we honor land defenders killed for justice, connect past and present violence, and affirm memory as defiance against exploitation, dispossession, and ecological destruction. www.tni.org/en/article/c...

Zach gets it exactly right. Orban was an authoritarian who built a rigged election system for his own gain. But Peter Magyar cracked the code - realizing that every vote in the countryside was worth two to three votes in the cities and so racked up countryside support, winning 2/3rds of the seats.

I find amazing the deafening silence from US universities on Trump's explicit threats to commit war crimes. It is astounding how he has managed to silence them/us. Is this what we agreed to when we bought into institutional neutrality?

Most commentators characterize the aftermath of the 2006 Thai coup as a “resurrection of the bureaucratic polity.” But bureaucrats remained influential even during the period from 1992–2006. How should we understand their political influence? Read more here: t.co/znKFxNkZ1P

My book interview is up on the @NewBooksEAsia podcast! I discuss with Dr. Sarah Bramao-Ramos how I started researching this topic, why global South-South development history matters, how Taiwan constructed a unique model of agrarian development, and more! newbooksnetwork.com/in-the-globa...

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....