A joint conference organized by CSEAS and UCLA’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies that was originally planned to be held at UCLA in April 2020 was held online during the week of February 8, 2021. The conference, Ethnic and Community Identity in Southeast Asia, was designed to explore aspects of group and individual identity in Southeast Asia, and examine newly emerging forms of identity as well as long-existing ones that are being reconceptualized or reasserted in new circumstances. The keynote address, by Prof. Ardeth Thawnghmung from University of Massachusetts-Lowell, is available for viewing on the UC Berkeley CSEAS YouTube channel, as is the special roundtable discussion on the February 1, 2021 coup in Burma/Myanmar. George Dutton, Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA, and Director of UCLA CSEAS, served as the conference chair. UC Berkeley CSEAS and UCLA CSEAS are a consortium U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center for Southeast Asian Studies. A summary of the conference and the conference panels has been posted to the UCLA CSEAS website.
February 12, 2021