Organizer: New York Southeast Asia Network (NYSEAN)
Co-Sponsors: Program in International Relations, NYU; APEC Study Center, Columbia University
Type/Location: Hybrid / New York, NY
Description:
This conference brings together scholars and practitioners to examine the politics of the environmental crisis across Southeast Asia—a region where socio-ecological ruptures are not aberrations but products of longstanding structures of extraction and governance failure. Panelists trace the roots of these crises and assess how extractive industries, increasingly legitimized through the language of green transitions and climate finance, reproduce entrenched patterns of dispossession and injustice. From nickel mining and biofuel expansion to sand dredging and flood aid corruption, the panels situate contemporary crises within deeper histories of resource conflict and structural inequality.
The conference foregrounds questions of resistance and accountability: what are communities, activists, and civil society organizations doing to contest new forms of ecological crisis? And what political conditions are necessary to advance climate action while achieving social and environmental justice? Beyond critical analysis, we seek insights into the strategies—legal, political, and grassroots—that have worked or might work to address Southeast Asia’s intertwined ecological and democratic crises.
Speakers:
W.J. Ward Berenschot, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam
Arthur Blundell, Natural Capital Advisers, LLC
Pianporn (Pai) Deetes, Executive Director, Rivers and Rights
Jessica DiCarlo, Assistant Professor School of Environment, Society & Sustainability, University of Utah
Muhammad Naser El Haq, Program Associate, Rights CoLab
Brian Eyler, Senior Fellow and Director, Southeast Asia and Energy, Water, & Sustainability Programs
John Gershman, Clinical Professor of Public Service, Director of International Specialization, NYU Wagner
Erik Harms, Professor of Anthropology and Southeast Asia Studies, Chair, Council on Southeast Asian Studies, Yale University
Thuy Ho, PhD Student, Department of Geography, Indiana University at Bloomington
Sidney Jones, Program in International Relations, New York University
Sophia Kalantzakos, Global Distinguished Professor, Environmental Studies and Public Policy, NYU Abu Dhabi
Guinevere “Gwen” Latoza, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
Yifei Li, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, NYU Shanghai
Munawar Liza, Co-Founder, Aceh Center for Peace and Development
Danny Marks, Assistant Professor of Environmental Politics and Policy, Dublin City University
Jewellord “Jojo” Nem Singh, Critical Raw Materials Policy Lab
Dian Patria, Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)
Natchaya Pichetsatha, Climate Change Policy Advisor and Environmental Justice Lawyer
Frances Seymour, Senior Policy Advisor, Woodwell Climate Research Center, Yale School of the Environment
Dewi Suralaga, Lead Consultant for Indonesia Coordination, Climate and Land Use Alliance
Eve Warburton, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University
Piyaporn Wongruang, Founder and Editor, The Bangkok Tribune
Kevin Woods, Research Associate, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University
Registration:
To attend the event in person, please register here for Day 1 and Day 2 of the conference.
To attend the event virtually, please register for the zoom webinar.