IQAS

This IQAS issue explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on research practices, focusing on the challenges researchers from across Asia and Europe with diverse (inter-)disciplinary angles and positionalities faced while adapting to digitally-mediated research methods. It highlights how the pandemic accelerated the shift to online research, prompting changes in data collection, researcher positionality, and engagement with marginalized groups. The articles document negotiations, discussions and choices that they made in unplanned situations. The issue discusses, through a collaborative exchange, the methodological, ethical, and personal issues that arose in fieldwork, emphasizing the need for updated skills and research designs in the digital era. The reflections presented do not offer fixed solutions but contribute to an evolving discourse on conducting research in a rapidly changing, connected world.

Find the new issue here (Open Access).

Selected articles

The latest IQAS issue brings together four articles on diverse topics. Narayanan Ganesan's contribution analyses Thailand's bilateral policy towards Myanmar, while Aki Tonami and Hidehiro Yamamoto examine Japan's gender gap in politics and the role of social media. Pepe P. Roswaldy's study focuses on the impacts of land conflicts on the health of Toba women in Indonesia. Additionally, Tomasso Previato sheds light on the animistic practices of Tibeto-Burman minorities in Yunnan, which integrate gender and species into community concepts. This issue offers diverse perspectives on key societal and political issues in Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, and China.

Find the new issue here (Open Acess).

Selected Articles

Thailand’s Bilateral Response to the 2021 Myanmar Military Coup: Historical Contexts and Evolving Strategies
Narayanan Ganesan

Women, Social Media and Political Engagement in Japan: A Survey Study
Aki Tonami, Hidehiro Yamamoto

IQAS (International Quarterly for Asian Studies) has been Germany's leading academic journal on Asia since 1970. It provides a forum for multidisciplinary research on current and historical topics relevant to politics, economics and society in contemporary Asia. It seeks to make the results of social science research on Asia known to a broader public discourse about Asia. The contributions are intended for a public aware that the world's regions and cultures have always been interlinked and, thus, need to be understood in relation to one another. The journal appears quarterly or semi-annually as a double issue in print and an open-access version. The journal is published by the ABI. 

All issues can be found on the website of IQAS.

The new IQAS issue Vol. 55 No. 2 (2024) "Politics of Marginalisation in Indonesia: The Jokowi Era" discusses the experiences of marginalised communities in Indonesia under the Joko Widodo (Jokowi) government (2014–2024).

The issue focuses on the different life-worlds of marginalised communities in Indonesia. It critically asks how Jokowi’s narrative of modernization and (infrastructural) development affects their lives. Especially relevant is the multiplicity of simultaneous marginalisation. The majority of the groups struggle with this so-called intersectional marginality.

The four contributions draw attention to issues of precarious livelihoods in the context of discrimination, rural poverty, environmental degradation, populist politics, community resistance and health justice. The focus lies on issues of social inequality, exclusion and the protection of human rights in the context of drastic social, political and economic transformations introduced by the Jokowi government. The contributions show, that local communities were often ignored and sidelined by the government to achieve its rigid goals.

Find the new issue here (Open Acess).

Selected Articles

False Hope and Broken Promises: Jokowi’s Human Rights Agenda – A Commentary
Usman Hamid

Rural Social Movements and Popular Struggles under Jokowi’s Presidency
Iqra Anugrah

IQAS (International Quarterly for Asian Studies) has been Germany's leading academic journal on Asia since 1970. It provides a forum for multidisciplinary research on current and historical topics relevant to politics, economics and society in contemporary Asia. It seeks to make the results of social science research on Asia known to a broader public discourse about Asia. The contributions are intended for a public aware that the world's regions and cultures have always been interlinked and, thus, need to be understood in relation to one another. The journal appears quarterly or semi-annually as a double issue in print and an open-access version. The journal is published by the ABI. 

All issues can be found on the website of IQAS.

The IQAS-issue "Mutual Transformations – Southeast Asia and Japan in the 21st Century" sheds light on Japan’s role in Southeast Asian political, security, economic, and cultural exchanges in the 21st Century. 

Southeast Asia, a region rich in raw materials, has attracted the attention of several imperial powers, including Japan, throughout history. Since the early 1960s, the development of industry, infrastructure and the service economy have been shaped by Japanese investments. Recent transformations, particularly the growing Chinese influence, create a new dynamic within economic and trade arrangements, as well as in political coordination and confrontation. 

This issue offers a glimpse into the complex network of relations tying Japan to Southeast Asia and vice versa. On the one hand, it focuses on the major drivers determining contemporary patterns of cooperation, highlighting the increasing role of security; on the other hand, it sheds light on the intraregional mobility of ideas, knowledge and know-how, particularly in terms of urban development policies, where regional competition and Japan’s influence are more visible. 

Find the new issue here (Open Access).

Selected articles
Mutual Transformations – Southeast Asia and Japan in the 21st Century
Marco Zappa
Negotiation of Strategic Distance: A Smart City Project with Japanese Official Development Assistance in Bang Sue, Thailand
Kie Sanada, Kentaro Kuwatsuka

IQAS (International Quarterly for Asian Studies) has been Germany's leading academic journal on Asia since 1970. It provides a forum for multidisciplinary research on current and historical topics relevant to politics, economics and society in contemporary Asia. It seeks to make the results of social science research on Asia known to a broader public discourse about Asia. The contributions are intended for a public aware that the world's regions and cultures have always been interlinked and, thus, need to be understood in relation to one another. The journal appears quarterly or semi-annually as a double issue in print and an open-access version. The journal is published by the ABI. 

All issues can be found on the website of IQAS.

This IQAS issue relates to the relationship between religious knowledge and women’s professionalisation. It links empirical observations of applied religious knowledge with the conceptualisation of professionalisation, examined through case studies from Southeast, South and Central Asia. The lens it looks through is intentionally gender-sensitive, exploring how Muslim women in Asia actively and creatively participate in the production and dissemination of religious knowledge and the formation of new knowledge societies through participation in social activism and the global economy on multiple scales. 

The authors are members and partners of a research initiative that seeks to explore women’s pathways to professionalisation in Muslim Asia. In the course of three years, substantial findings have come to light that lead the authors of this issue to suggest a more flexible understanding of the concept of “profession” and the notion of “religious knowledge”.

Find the new issue here.

Other issues can be found on the website of IQAS.

This second part of the IQAS special issue on "Knowledge on the Move" extends the critical exploration of knowledge circulation in Asia. Building on the foundations laid in Part I, which underscored the pivotal role of translation in facilitating knowledge movement, Part II delves into diverse contexts across Asia. The first article investigates ethnic activism in Nepal, revealing how a language of ethnicity evolved through translation acts, connecting local, national, and global audiences. The second article explores the socio-cultural unity of the Rang people across the Nepal-India border, navigating differing minority policies and ethnonyms. The third article examines Indian immigrants' agency in shaping interregional mobility and connectivity, focusing on protests in North America and the Philippines in the early 20th century. Finally, the fourth article explores the role of photojournalism in interwar Japan, specifically in women's magazines, shaping an imagined geography of a multicultural Japanese empire. Collectively, these articles offer rich insights into the complexities of knowledge movement, highlighting its transformative potential in diverse Asian contexts.

Find the new issue here.