Migration is embodied, in the meals we eat and the transnational lives we live. Over the last year in Malaysia, Indian migrant workers can be seen …
Migrant (Worker) Foodscapes
Demystifying Kuda Kepang, a Seni Pusaka Talk
In a world of AI IPOs, and trillionaire wealth creation hype, an afternoon of traditional art and culture can be subliminal, and healing in the best way. Madam Pauline Fan, gave a talk which is so much, an oral history itself. The presentation has great photos, totally evocative. A powerful effort of public education beyond click bait sensationalism.
Learning takes many forms, it can be in a Saturday afternoon talk at an Art Gallery and these conversations are needed, if not totally friction-less. The questions focused on the language, and the debates around it.
This is a talk which pushes the writer in me to think, about Malaysia beyond the twin towers.
The Chip War Imperium
Penang is all heritage and hardware. Geography is destiny, as the strategic location along semiconductor value chains intersect here with the entire island apart from Georgetown, the living Indian Ocean Museum – a large electronics zone. The Indian Ocean Imperium was a contact zone , and is a magnet for new infrastructure investments in the newly reclaimed Andaman island. The chip wars have Penang as a node, where US, Chinese and European capital intersect and manpower from South Asia keep the engines running. The politics is aligned for now between the centre and the state. The Muhibah ethic is apparent, and everyone wins.
Asian Labour School
It is nice to engage in a space which is eclectic, with platform labour leaders and academics with actual platform workers, in a class discussing key ideas in automation and labour.
Always great to skill up, thank you Dr Kriangsak for the kind opportunity to learn and engage in the most important labour debates of our times.
Why Do We Fund You?
In this times of polycrisis, fund raising and business development gets harder for impact causes as the ROI discussion gets sharper on the part of clients and funders.
The ROI is often fuzzy, yet it needs to be communicated in dollars and cents. Why pay for an assessment when it’s not required, or why fund a non profit in a core funding basis where MEL is off the usual framework?
In this world of impact fatigue in multiple wars, why is your service mission critical ?
Rethinking Traditional Performing Arts- Day One
Super intellectually charged day one of the ‘Rethinking traditional arts through regional dialogues’ with thought provoking presentations by Dr Sumit, Dr Vila, the Dr from UKM which are wrapped around questions of creolisation, belonging, identity and voice. The breakout session with Dr Sumit and the fellow participants shed light of strategic decisions that diasporas have taken to belong.
Looking forward to day two!
Understanding SEA
Grateful to be receiving so much love and support from friends in Malaysia, since i have come back recently. SE Asia is my chosen intellectual home, and have been here for a decade plus across times slots. Every place needs time to sink in, and as a visitor one needs to understand the nuances here. A lot of it Is unwritten, and is understood in silences and the twitches of the eye. Food is a great way to sense a place, the rhythms of how one eats and engages in leisure gives away the ‘vibe’.
A complicated place definitely, but a kind place if one seeks to understand.
Sayonnee in Tamizh Diaspora
While eating sapaadu at a Tamizh Hindu place in the KL area, where Sun Music was on, I was rather surprised to find a Tamil version of Sayoonee by Junoon, the iconic track. A young CM Joseph Vijay was starring in the song.
Things one finds in the diaspora, can be such gems.
An Afternoon Masterclass with Danny Quah and Ong Kian Ming
Former Minister Dr Ong Kian Ming and Professor Danny Quah from the LKYSPP chat geopolitics of trade in an indie bookstore in Kuala Lumpur. The masterclass on the new world disorder, is something we don’t think with through shocks, electric vehicles and new geometry of alliances. The EV is a common good, for the planetary commons and the global supply chains.
Tintabudi is a chic bookstore and events space with good coffee where this ticketed event was hosted on a Saturday afternoon. Great audience of think tankers, policy wonks, researchers were around to ask the sharpest questions in the Q&A and the after the event.
A sense of intellectual community was found certainly. And Kuala Lumpur/Penang have amazing independent bookstores.
I took copious notes on the New World of Disorder and the China/US Shocks.
Public History on a Friday Evening in KL
I love the fact that Malaysia creates spaces in the civil society to articulate thoughts and narratives which are alternative in character. This evening Imagined Malaysia, Malaysia Design Archive and Rumah Attap come together to host an archivist’s talk on a Friday evening in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.
The archivist spoke about social history and private manuscript collections as a window into everyday life.
@im.imaginedmalaysia does public history amazing work, and is totally volunteer driven by historians who are trained in Cambridge and Yale.
Last year i had attended a fun talk by the history doyen Barbara Andaya organised by Imagined Malaysia on a Saturday morning and it was packed with researchers and historians.
Alternative spaces give life to researchers who work on micro histories and oral histories.
Wish there are similar places in Mumbai although Sarmaya does a great job.
Change Thinker 