I have come across with this news today, which reports on the IOC’s consideration of postponing the Tokyo 2020. Such spectacles as Olympic Games entail a sense of ‘state of emergency’, leading to the suspension of normal planing processes and diversion of investment in necessary social and physical infrastructure for the poor and the marginalised. […]
LSE is one of the first universities in the UK to deliver the rest of teaching online as part of its effort to tackle the COVID19 pandemic situation, and also to switch summer term written exams into online assessments. All public events are also to be cancelled or postponed. My department is to enact this […]
On 3rd February 2020, it was pleasure to be invited and speak on the topic, “Neoliberal Urbanism and Social Movements Responses to Housing Struggles in Asia” for a UCL workshop on the new British Academy-funded project on living heritage and spatial violence in Myanmar, led by SEAC Associate Dr Catalina Ortiz (Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL).
On 16th December 2019, it was my pleasure to visit the Khazanah Research Institute in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to discuss potential research collaborations with Dr Suraya Ismail who also showed me around her social housing project sites. On 17th December, I visited the institute again to give a talk entitled, “Contesting Property Hegemony in Asian […]
On 3rd December 2019, LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, along with the Department of Geography and Environment, co-hosted the book launch for the 2019 book “Neoliberal Urbanism, Contested Cities and Housing in Asia” that I co-edited with Dr. Yi Ling Chen (Associate Professor of Global and Area Studies and Geography, University of Colorado Boulder) (see the […]
On 13th November 2019, it was my honour to speak at the concluding Plenary of the three-day UCL conference entitled, ‘At the frontiers of the urban: thinking concepts and practices globally.’ Chaired by Prof Jenny Robinson and also joined by Prof Vanessa Watson and Prof AbdouMaliq Simone, the plenary provided a set of concluding reflections […]
On 8th November 2019, it was my honour to give a public lecture at the University College London as part of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR) public lecture series. This event coincided with the annual meeting of the IJURR editorial board, which I was attending as a new board member. The […]
From 15th – 22nd September 2019, RC21 conference, “In and Beyond the City: Emerging Ontologies, Persistent Challenges and Hopeful Futures” was held in Delhi, India, and the visit to Delhi was a memorable one. At the conference, I convened sessions entitled “The Urban Spectre of ‘Global China’ and Critical Reflections on its Spatiality” together with my co-investigators […]
On 21st September 2019, I enjoyed the visit to O.P. Jindal Global University to give a keynote at the Inter-Disciplinary Workshop in Development Studies organised by the Centre for New Economics Studies, Jindal School of International Affairs. The workshop’s theme was “Urban Transformations”, and my keynote was entitled “Urban Transformation with ‘Asian Style’: Reflections on […]
On 17th September 2019, it was my pleasure to visit the Jawaharlal Nehru University and give a lecture at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development. My talk was titled “In the shadow of state-led gentrification: The commercialisation of residential properties in Seoul”. The visit also involved discussions with colleagues at the Centre for the […]