May 2007 Projects Funded

Early this year, the Centre invited applications from all Australian universities with established Asian and Pacific Studies programs to submit applications for project funding under three Grant Programs - the Regional Collaboration, Cross-Sectoral Linkage and Institutional Linkage Programs. Applications closed on 30 April 2007.

Twenty applications were received. The Centre's Grants Committee recommended that the Director support eleven of the applications which met the Centre's funding guidelines.

Details of the projects supported follow

Applications Supported (May 2007)

Applications Submitted & Supported (Round Three 2006)

 

Regional Collaboration Program

Dr Philip Rose

The Australian National University

Project Title: “East meets West in Chinese Forensic Speaker Recognition”: Study

Project Aims & Outcomes: The specific objective of this study is to test forensic speaker recognition in Chinese. It will ascertain the reliability of discriminating between same-speaker and different-speaker Chinese speech samples using vowel and tone acoustics. The outcomes of the study will be published in an internationally refereed journal such as Intl. J. Speech Language and the Law. The results will be made available for use, as background populations, in real forensic case-work, both in China and Australia.

Funding: $12,820

Prof William Tow

The Australian National University

Project Title: “Emerging Australia-Japan Security Cooperation: A Catalyst for Strategic Rivalry or Regional Order-Building?”: Workshop

Project Aims & Outcomes: This project assesses how the intensification of Australian and Japanese security ties affects regional security in both the traditional and transnational sectors. In this project, independent Australian, Japanese, Chinese, ASEAN and U.S. security experts will assess specific features of Australian-Japanese bilateral security relations. The importance of intra-regional responses (especially by China and ASEAN) will also be surveyed. U.S. perceptions are especially important given the core relevance of the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue precedent to understanding how the Australia-Japan Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation may function and may affect regional security politics.

Funding: $9,450

Cross-Sectoral Linkage Program

Ms Melissa Conley Tyler

Australian Institute of International Affairs

Project Title:“Indonesia: From neighbour to partner?”: National President’s Forum

Project Aims & Outcomes: The National President’s Forum will address the bilateral relationship between Indonesia and Australia with a particular focus on Indonesian perceptions of Australia and Australian perceptions of Indonesia, and how these perceptions affect the relationship. This Forum will bring together a select group of Australian and Indonesian experts and progress debate on relations with Australia’s nearest neighbour. Forum discussions are expected to include a critique of Australian foreign policy in Asia and issues in Southeast Asian Islam, including Islamism, human rights and social justice.

Funding: $10,000

Professor Mary Farquhar

Griffith University

Project Title: “Crossing Borders: Developing a Chinese Juvenile/Youth Justice Network in Australia”: International Workshop

Project Aims & Outcomes: The project aims to inaugurate an expert youth/juvenile justice network as part of a newly-conceived China Law Network (CLN) across Australia. This start-up workshop will involve personnel in the field from Australia, the PRC, and the region. In this way, the project is a seed project that is cross-sectoral. It aims to pave the way for future new CLN research synergies within its ambit (eg., drugs, labor, energy, security).

This inaugural workshop outcomes are to: Develop an Australia-China youth and juvenile justice research network; Workshop key issues in Chinese youth and juvenile justice as a basis for further research; Identify and network with key Chinese players, such as judges and police; Set up linkages between Chinese, Australian, and regional stake-holders; Explore avenues for communicating workshop and networking outcomes (eg an edited volume); Facilitate collaborative approaches to planning and research by inviting key PRC researchers and practitioners to the project workshop.

Funding: $16,202

Professor John Gillespie

Monash University

Project Title: “Pushing Against Globalisation: A Local Perspective of Commercial Regulation in Asia”: Conference

Project Aims & Outcomes: This project aims to develop a network among scholars and institutions to produce a theoretical account for public participation in commercial lawmaking in Asia. Following the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 countries in the region have with renewed vigour imported global (primarily American) corporate governance and financial regulatory models. The workshop will build conceptual models that explain similarities and differences in bottom-up influences over commercial regulation in selected East Asian countries. Findings will be published in the Routledge Law in Asia series. In addition they will form the basis for an ARC Discovery Grant application and applications for Ford Foundation and Fulbright Foundation funding.

Funding: $15,000

Professor Mark Mosko

The Australian National University

Project Title: “Aboriginal Taiwanese-Austronesian Comparisons: Scholarly Exchange Among Taiwanese and Australian Ethnographers”: Forum

Project Aims & Outcomes: The aim of this project is to initiate collegial relations between the leading Taiwanese anthropologists of the Aboriginal people of Taiwan with anthropologists and other social scientists and humanists in Australia interested in the comparative study of the peoples of the Pacific and Asia. This project seeks to bridge this lacuna by enabling the five leading Taiwanese experts on the aboriginal cultures experts on the aboriginal cultures to present their work in two forums.

Funding: $7,100

Professor Tacconi

The Australian National University

Project Title: “Improving forest governance to reduce the contribution of tropical deforestation to climate change”: Seminar

Project Aims & Outcomes: The project will focus on Indonesia and Papua New Guinea for the following reasons: They are the two most significant countries in Asia and the Pacific, respectively, in terms of forested area. The area deforested annually in Indonesia is second only to Brazil. Indonesia has been ranked third after the United States and China, if the emissions from deforested peatland areas in Indonesia are included. Papua New Guinea is one of the countries with the largest intact area of rainforest and it has promoted the inclusion of avoided deforestation in the next commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. This project will improve understanding of the constraints faced in improving forest governance, with particular focus on Indonesia and Papua New Guinea; generate key research questions to be addressed by follow-up research and support the establishment of a forest governance learning network in the Asia Pacific region.

Funding: $10,000

Institutional Linkage Program

Professor Rikki Kersten

The Australian National University

Project Title: “International Dimensions of Islam in Indonesia”: Workshop

Project Aims & Outcomes: The workshop will bring together noted Australian, Indonesian and Dutch scholars of Islam for the purpose of discussing the current state of knowledge regarding the international dimensions of Indonesian Islam, particularly relating to gaps in the academic literature. It will devise new research initiatives arising from this project to address the shortcomings in our knowledge in Indonesian Islam’s interactions with foreign Muslims communities; and arrange research collaborations between Australian, Indonesian and Dutch scholars to improve our understanding of this subject.

Funding: $10,000

Professor David Laurence

University of New South Wales

Project Title: “From Threat to Opportunity - Addressing the Social and Environmental Impacts of Coal Mining in India”: Conference

Project Aims & Outcomes: This Conference will address the Social and Environmental Impacts of Coal Mining in India, and will be held in India in November 2007. The conference aims to address the social, environmental and accountability measures, mechanisms and policies that will be necessary if India is to achieve its coal-related energy goals in a responsible and sustainable way for the foreseeable future. The Conference outcomes will have national and international benefits such as potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and poverty.

Funding: $6,400

Doctor George Quinn

The Australian National University

Project Title: “The Australia-East Timor Research Partnership”: Partnership

Project Aims & Outcomes: The main aim of the project is to establish an Australia – East Timor Research Partnership to facilitate collaborative research on East Timorese society among participating institutions. The Partnership will be formally initiated during a two-day conference to be held at Charles Darwin University in February 2008. The theme of the conference will be “East Timor’s Contemporary Political Dynamics in Social and Historical Context”. The conference will discuss the outcome of East Timor’s presidential and parliamentary elections of 2007 with emphasis on the following issues: local and district politics, new political parties and movements, the future of Fretilin, the politics of food security, livelihoods, indigenous religion and the Catholic Church, global interests and East Timor’s independence.

Funding: $30,000

Mr Andrew Walker

The Australian National University

Project Title: “Revisiting the Frontier in the Southeast Asian Massif”. Workshop

Project Aims & Outcomes: The workshop aims to bring together leading scholars and field researchers to examine critical issues relating to the study of upland frontier regions in southern China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma. The primary objective of the workshop is to explore the processes of collaborative exchange and socio-political genesis that take place in frontier regions.

Funding: $12,230