UNE Asia Pacific Network (APN)

About the network

We serve as a hub for research, teaching and policy analysis that sheds light on social, political, cultural and economic change and transformation in Australia’s neighbourhood. Established in 1992 as the Asia Pacific Centre, we bring together experienced scholars, research students and practitioners to develop a deeper understanding of many aspects of this region. Our network members and researchers pursue cutting edge research and policy significant scholarship in five interrelated thematic areas:

  • Peace, conflict, development and community resilience
  • Social and political movements and discourses
  • Environment, food security and social cohesion
  • Crisis, security and humanitarian action
  • Education, language, leadership and social change

The network disseminates new knowledge through publication and teaching, with the aim of promoting a deeper understanding of the Asia Pacific region and its people to bridge Australia’s relationships with its neighbours, and contribute to a more peaceful, resilient and ecologically sustainable region.

Our aims

  • Lead and facilitate collaborative research and outputs focusing on social, political, cultural and economic change and transformation in the Asia Pacific region.
  • Facilitate policy research and dialogue on pressing issues affecting the lives and livelihoods of people in the Asia Pacific region.
  • Offer space for building links and exchanging knowledge between academics and practitioners.
  • Produce valuable knowledge and information that enhances socio-economic wellbeing of the people and empower rural and regional communities in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

Network directors

Emeritus Professor Howard Brasted Director

Researcher profile

Professor Helen Ware Director

Researcher profile

Network coordinators

Dr Johanna Garnett Coordinator

Researcher profile

Our work

Today, the Asia Pacific region is one of the world’s leading economic and technology hubs. But the presence of fragile and conflict-affected countries, growing socio-economic inequalities within and beyond the states, rising geo-political tensions between China and the West and the rise of authoritarian, populist and nationalist governments are likely to produce lasting adverse impacts on economic development, peace, and social and economic wellbeing of the people in this region. Understanding the processes and dynamics of these changes and transformations are crucial for how Australians imagine and understand the everyday lives of their neighbours and how Australia as a middle power engages with the Asia Pacific region.

Australia's future is inextricable from events and trends occurring in the Asia Pacific. The UNE-APN incorporates an understanding of the importance of Australia’s regional and international context and provides students and researchers with an enabling environment to deepen their knowledge about how change and transformation in the Asia Pacific impacts Australian society.

Our research 

Neo-nationalism, right-wing politics and religious extremism in South Asia

This project examines the changing dynamics of the nationalist political discourses in South Asia. It investigates how the imagination and experience of nationalism has been influenced and framed by the interface between rise of right-wing politics and religious extremism. By uncovering the complex relationships between religion, politics and nationalism, and situating this phenomenon in the discourse of globalisation and securitisation, the project sheds light on how nationalism and religion have become the predictors of new social conflicts in South Asia.

More about this project.

Investigator: Dr DB Subedi


Populism in Asia Pacific

Populism is a growing phenomenon that is challenging the dynamics of all forms of government right around the world. Countries in the Asia Pacific region are not immune from this challenge as populist politics of different forms and styles have emerged rapidly in the last one decade or so. The “Populism in Asia Pacific” project employs comparative social and political perspectives to understand the anomalies of populisms and its effects on democracy in the Asia Pacific region. This project will result into journal articles and the Routledge Handbook of Populism. The handbook will, for the first time, bring thematic analysis and several country case studies together to identify the processes and patterns with which populist politics, leadership and mobilisations have manifested in the Asia Pacific region.

Research team: Dr DB Subedi, Professor Alan Scott, Professor Howard Brasted, Dr Tony Lynch


Cultural Hybridity and Resilience in the Goto Islands: An Oral History Project

By examining the experiences of a minority community and heritage sites in liminal spaces in history and memory, through an interdisciplinary methodology and lens which draws on oral history, discussion of material objects and trauma studies, this project promotes a new postcolonial historiography. Although some communities have been studied by researchers from time to time in the region of the Goto Islands, Japan, comparative historic studies of Hidden Christian, Catholic and apostate communities have been neglected. This research will contribute to the ongoing retrieval of histories of marginalised and excluded groups and assist in understanding the interaction on the boundaries of Japan between varied people groups. Through this historical research, I aim to contribute to understanding the interaction on the boundaries of nations and states between varied people groups. By interviewing local people about their understanding of history and memory, the project promotes an indigenous and localised view. A UNE faculty grant (2022) has supported the project by the employment of a local research assistant, and Japan Foundation (2022) and the National Library of Australia (2022-2023) have contributed generous fellowships that will enable the research to progress. Additionally, Associate Professor Nishimura Akira of the University of Tokyo, has provided support within Japan, as well as the Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture.

Investigator: Dr Gwyn McClelland and Co-Investigator- Akira Nishimura from University of Tokyo)


The Permaculture Institute – Myanmar (PIM)

PIM was founded in 2019 as a collaborative project. It is the first permaculture Institute in Myanmar aiming to protect and conserve the environment, promote sustainable living and peace.

Contact: Dr Johanna Garnett

Thematic research areas 
  • Peace, conflict, development and community resilience
  • Social and political movements and discourses
  • Environment, food security and social cohesion
  • Crisis, security and humanitarian action
  • Education, language, leadership and social change
Current PhD research

Iqthyer Uddin Md Zahed: The Politics of Forced Migration in the 21st Century: The Case of the Rohingya

Sazzad H. Siddiqui:  Post-liberal Hybrid Peace (building): Examining the role of peace infrastructure, positive peace and indigeneity in the post-accord Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.

Godwin Yidana: A Critical Analysis of Women’s Participation in the Myanmar Peace Process

Kashif Hussain: State fragility and violent ends: The case of Pakistan

Prashneel Ravisan Goundar: Writing Skills for Undergraduate Students in Fiji:  Tackling Educational Inequalities, Facilitating Epistemic Access.

Publications

Recent research outputs by the APN members

Olfactory Cultures of Asia Project:

Gould, H. & McClelland, G. (forthcoming) Aromas of Asia (Under contract with Penn State University Press), Due September 2023, likely as “Aromas of Asia: Contacts, Exchanges, Histories”.

Aromas of Asia is an innovative multi-disciplinary collection that explores the interconnections and disjunctures in Asian cultural histories of scent and how they resonate in contemporary arenas such as politics, religion, health, environmental discourse, and everyday life. Scent is uniquely powerful as an imposed marker of ethnic, gender, and class identities, but it can also overwhelm previously constructed boundaries and transform social-sensory realities, within contexts of environmental degradation, pathogen outbreaks, and racial politics. Bringing together international scholars with deep knowledge of the region, this collection aims to examine the mechanics by which scent constitutes worlds, and in particular, how scent functions as a category of social and moral boundary-marking and boundary-breaching within, between, and beyond Asian societies.


Combatants to Civilians book cover - Silhouetted army men on a hillReintegration of Maoist ex-combatants and peacebuilding in Nepal

Much has been written about reintegration of ex-combatants in a traditional or conventional disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme in liberal peacebuilding projects but our understanding of how reintegration of ex-combatants works in post-liberal hybrid peacebuilding is limited. This volume examines reintegration of ex-combatants and peacebuilding in Nepal, situating the phenomena in the divisive politics of war to peace transition and hybrid peacebuilding. Drawing on the narratives and perceptions of ex-combatants and their families, the volume provides a compelling analysis of why some ex-combatants reintegrate socially and economically better than others at the end of a war where long-term supports are unavailable to enable ex-combatants to reintegrate back into society. Analysing the consequences and effects of reintegration of Maoist ex-combatants in the post-conflict peace and security, the volume argues that cash-based schemed that replace formal reintegration support in DDR programme can pacify ex-combatants and de-politicise a DDR programme but cash- based schemes alone cannot reintegrate ex-combatants.

Author: DB Subedi


Red book cover Reconciliation in the Asia Pacific

This book focuses on the formal and informal reconciliation processes during conflict and post-conflict periods in various locations in the Asia-Pacific, and includes cases studies based on primary research conducted in countries such as Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, South Thailand, Bougainville and the Solomon Islands. It offers insights to further our understanding of the social and political processes of reconciliation in a region that has witnessed numerous armed conflicts, many of them perpetuating over generations. The book also draws lessons from the richness arising from diversity in terms of religious and cultural practices, social life, and forms of government and governance, and through the exploration of theories and practices of reconciliation in conflict and post-conflict contexts in the region. It provides useful reference material for researchers, academics, policy makers and students working in the areas of peacebuilding, conflict transformation, reconciliation, social cohesion, development, transitional justice and human rights in the Asia and Pacific region.

Editors: Bert Jenkins, DB Subedi, Kathy Jenkins


Women, Media, and Power in Indonesia

This book demonstrates the crucial link between gender and structures of power in democratic Indonesia, and the role of the online news media in regulating this relationship of power. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a theoretical framework, and social actor analysis as the methodological approach, this book examines the discursive representation of three prominent female Indonesian political figures in the mainstream Indonesian online news media in a period of social-political transition. It presents newfound linguistic evidence in the form of discourse strategies that reflect the women’s dynamic relationship with power. More broadly, the critical analysis of the news discourse becomes a way of uncovering and evaluating implicit barriers and opportunities affecting women’s political participation in Indonesia and other Asian political contexts, Indonesia’s process of democratisation, and the influential role of the online news media in shaping and reflecting political discourse. Find out more here.

Author: Jane Ahlstrand 


Edited Volume

Ahmed, I., Ahmed, Z S ., Brasted, H., & Akbarzadeh, S. (2022) Religion, Extremism and Violence in South Asia. Palgrave Macmillan.

Journal articles

Most recent research articles published by the Centre members:

Ahmed, I. (2021) Not Islamic Enough?: Bangla, Blasphemy and the Law in Pakistan. Griffith Law Review, 30(1), 148-165.

Ahmed, I., & Brasted, H. (2021) Recognition and Dissent: Constitutional Design and Religious Conflict in Pakistan. Journal of Contemporary Asia,51(2), 351-367.

Durbidge, L. and McClelland, G. 2022. Japanese Language Learning and Teaching During COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities. Japanese Studies, 42 (3). Research Article.

Schneider, Cindy. (2022). English and Bislama in the Vanuatu Supreme Court: a shallow equality. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 29(2), 145-171.

Peer-reviewed Journal Article: McClelland, G. 2021. Catholics at Ground Zero: Negotiating (Post) Memory, History Workshop Journal, dbab017,

Peer-reviewed Edited Book Chapter: McClelland, G. 2021. Foreign Missionaries and Indigenous Communities in Nineteenth Century: Japan. In Chu, Cindy Yik-yi and Leung, Beatrice (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of the Catholic Church in East Asia, vol. 3, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 1-36.

Open-Access Peer-reviewed Journal Article: McClelland, G. 2021. Urakami Memory and the Two Popes: The Disrupting of an Abstracted Nuclear Discourse. Religions 12, no. 11: 950.

Iyengar, A., & Parchani, S. (2021). “Like Community, Like Language: Seventy-Five Years of Sindhi in Post-Partition India”, Journal of Sindhi Studies, 1(1), pp. 1-32. https://brill.com/view/journals/joss/1/1/article-p1_3.xml

Iyengar, A. (2021). “A diachronic analysis of Sindhi multiscriptality", Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, 7(2), pp. 207-241. https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2019-0027

McClelland, G. (2021). From Pure Land to Hell: Introducing four culturally hybrid UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Gotō Archipelago. Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures, https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.130.

McClelland, G. (2021). Introduction to the Beyond Japanese Studies Special Issue. New Voices in Japanese Studies, (13), v-vii.

Subedi, DB (2021). The Emergence of Populist Nationalism and ‘Illiberal’ Peacebuilding in Sri Lanka. Asian Studies Review, DOI: 10.1080/10357823.2021.1983519

Xiang Gao (2021). Staying in the nationalist bubble”: Social capital, culture wars, and the COVID-19 pandemic’. M/C Journal, 24(1).

DB Subedi (2021). Religion, Extremism and Buddhist-Muslim Relations in Sri Lanka. In Imran Ahmed, Zahid Ahmed, Howard Brasted and Shahram Akbaarzadeh (Eds) Religion, Extremism and Violence in South Asia. Singapore: Palgrave Macmilan (forthcoming).

Imran Ahmed & Howard Brasted (2020) Recognition and Dissent: Constitutional Design and Religious Conflict in Pakistan. Journal of Contemporary Asia, DOI: 10.1080/00472336.2020.1719538

DB Subedi & Johanna Garnett (2020) De-mystifying Buddhist religious extremism in Myanmar: confrontation and contestation around religion, development and state-building. Conflict, Security & Development, 20:2, 223-246.

Shafi Md. Mostofa & DB Subedi (2020). Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism in Bangladesh. Politics and Religion, 1-29. doi:10.1017/S1755048320000401

Johanna Garnett (2020) Permaculture for a post COVID-19 world: A community initiative in Myanmar, Southeast Asia, New Community Quarterly, 18/2, 70.

Gusti Bagus Dharma Agastia, Anak Agung Banyu Perwita & DB Subedi (2020) Countering violent extremism through state-society partnerships: a case study of de-radicalisation programmes in Indonesia. Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, 15:1, 23-43.

Shafi Md. Mostofa & Natalie J. Doyle (2019). Profiles of Islamist Militants in Bangladesh. Perspectives on Terrorism, 13(5), 112-129.

Prodip Mahbub & Johanna Garnett (2019). Emergency Education for Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh: An analysis of the policies, practices and limitations. Book Chapter in edited book - Education as a Panacea for Refugee Youth: Transitioning from Conflict to the Classroom, Routledge, London.

Subedi, DB, Nanau, Gordon, and Magar, Dip (2021). From a ‘Cultural Logic’ to an ‘Institutional Logic’: The Politics of Human Rights in the Pacific Island Countries (PICs). Journal of Human Rights. DOI: 10.1080/14754835.2021.1947207

Subedi, DB & Scott, Alan (2021). Populism, Authoritarianism and Charismatic-Plebiscitary Leadership in Contemporary Asia: A Comparative Perspective from India and Myanmar. Contemporary Politics. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569775.2021.1917162.

Gooskens, C. & C. Schneider. (2019). Linguistic And Non-Linguistic Factors Affecting Intelligibility Across Closely Related Varieties In Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. Dialectologia 23.

Resources and information

Nuclear Weapons after the ban: Remembering Nagasaki

The international webinar, 'Nuclear Weapons after the ban: Remembering Nagasaki'  co-hosted by Japanese, Peace Studies, Peace Boat Japan and the Asia Pacific Centre UNE, was a resounding success while being a sobering reminder of the need to eliminate nuclear weapons. There were 75 registrants from Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, UK, USA and China.

Mr Tanaka, who spoke on the webinar from Japan, was exposed to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which took the lives of five of his family members. When the atomic bomb was dropped, he was upstairs in his house, 3.2 kilometres from the hypocenter. Mr Tanaka is one of the many Hibakusha who have dedicated large parts of their lives to anti-nuclear activism. The vivid memories of the catastrophic effects that the nuclear bombing had on his family and his community, have driven Tanaka's continued efforts to make sure no one would have to suffer through such an event again. At the webinar, Mr Tanaka frequently repeated that he felt he was not as heavily impacted as others and that is the reason he wishes to continue to tell his story.

Participants asked excellent questions about why Nagasaki was not as well remembered as Hiroshima, how the survivors were cared for after the bombing and how Australian educational institutions could remember these events.

One attendee, Professor Frank Hutchinson, summed up the event as follows:

'The webinar raised important  issues about honest history-telling, war trauma, empathy, moral imagination, shared humanity, and working to  create a better  world for future generations free from nuclear weapons.' We hope to run a similar webinar during next year's conference to celebrate forty years of Peace Studies at UNE.

If you would like to view the webinar and listen to Tanaka Terumi's testimonial, follow the link here.

Tanaka Terumi Testimonial | Nuclear Weapons after the ban: Remembering Nagasaki webinar

In the media 

Our members

School and faculty based members
Affiliated members  
Join us

We welcome academics and practitioners from the Asia Pacific region to join the centre as affiliated members and research associates. We also welcome short-term visiting fellows, who are working within the remit of the centre. The UNE-APC also offers Higher Degree Research supervision in a wide range of areas including Sociology, Peace Studies, Political and International Studies, Education, History, Archaeology, Philosophy, and Geography and Planning.

Interested to join the UNE-APN?

Contact Dr DB Subedi: dsubedi2@une.edu.au