Education:
2005 Ph.D. Leiden University
2001 MA National University of Singapore
1997 BA (Hons) National University of Singapore
Work Experience:
2017-present Associate Professor Department of Chinese Studies, NUS
2012-2016 Associate Professor Department of Historical Studies, Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, University of Toronto
2007-2012 Assistant Professor Department of Historical Studies, Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, University of Toronto
2006-2007 Postdoctoral Fellow Asia Research Institute, NUS
Awards:
2014 College of Humanities and Social Science, National Chiao-tung University, Hsin-chu, Taiwan. Visiting fellow.
2013 International Center for Studies of Chinese Civilization visiting fellowship, Fudan University. Visiting fellow.
2012 The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) joint research fellowship, Leiden, The Netherlands, April-June 2012. Research fellow.
2008 Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and “Encountering a Common Past” (ENCOMPASS) program joint research fellowship, Leiden, The Netherlands.
China-Southeast Asia Interaction
Chinese Diaspora
Chinese in Southeast Asia
Trade Diasporas
Chinese Capitalism
Diasporic Entrepreneurship and Capitalisms
International Labour Migration
Chinese Contemporary Culture
Diasporic Histories and Cultures
Introduction to Southeast Asia
Introduction to Diaspora and Transnational Studies
Living in Post-Suharto West Kalimantan
Southeast Asian History (especially Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore), Monsoon Asia (South China Sea, Indian Ocean), Colonialism and Imperialism (especially Dutch and British), Capitalism, Chinese Ethnicity, Migration, Religion, Transnationalism and Entrepreneurial Networks
OTHERS
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
The Political Economy of Java’s Northeast Coast, c. 1740-1800: Elite Synergy. Leiden: Brill Publications, 2006.
“Nexus of Mobility: Chinese Economic Migration to West Borneo, c. 1740-1850,” Journal of Chinese Overseas 14, 2. 2018: 157-81.
“Chinese Economic Dominance in Southeast Asia: A Longue Durée Perspective,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 55, 1. 2013: 5-34.
“How Strangers Became Kings: Javanese-Dutch Relations in Java 1600-1800,” Indonesia and the Malay World 36. 2008: 293-307.
“Pockets of Empire: Integrating the Studies on Social Organizations in Southeast China and Southeast Asia,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 27, 3. 2007: 616-32.
“Of Married Daughters and Caged Chickens: History and Significations of Being “Chinese” in Southeast Asia.” In Global East Asia. Editors: Frank Pieke. Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcoming.
“The Expansion of the Chinese Inter-Insular and Hinterland Trade in Southeast Asia, c. 1400-1850.” In Environment, Trade and Society in Southeast Asia. Editors: David Henley and Henk Schulte Nordholt. Leiden: Brill, 2015, pp. 149-65.
“The Rise of the Chinese Commercial Dominance in Early Modern Southeast Asia.” In Merchant Communities in Asia, 1600-1980. Editors: Yu-ju Lin and Madeleine Zelin. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014, pp. 79-93.
“Chinese in Southeast Asia.” In Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian History. Editor: Norman G. Owen. London/New York: Routledge, 2013, pp. 289-99.
“The End of the ‘Age of Commerce’?: Javanese Cotton Trade Industry from the Seventeenth to the Eighteenth Centuries.” In Chinese Circulations: Capital, Commodities and Networks in Southeast Asia. Editors: Eric Tagliacozzo and Chang Wen-chin. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011, pp. 283-302.
“Money and Credit in the Chinese Mercantile Operations in Colonial and Precolonial Southeast Asia.” In Credit and Debt in Indonesia, 860-1930: From Peonage to Pawnshop, from Kongsi to Cooperative. Editors: David Henley and Peter Boomgaard. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Press, 2009, pp. 124-42.
Research Grants Received (Select)
2018-2021 MOE Tier-One Research Grant
2014-2017 Max Planck Research Project Grant
2008-2011 “Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council” Standard Research Grant, Canada