2024 – Sophie Chao, In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua (Duke University Press 2022)
The 2024 ECR Prize Committee included Professor Julian Millie (Monash), Professor Mina Roces (UNSW) and Professor Kaori Okano (La Trobe), and was supported by Dr Minerva Inwald (UNSW).
The Committee provided the following citation of the winning book:
“In the Shadow of Palms looks at the world from the perspective of a forest-dwelling Papuan community, the Marind. Paying close attention to the forest environment that shapes the Marind’s material and symbolic realities, Sophie Chao engages the reader in a heart-wrenching account of two major phenomena of our times. They are the destruction of forest environments that provide homes to humans as well as non-human species, and secondly, the unstoppable spread of capitalism facilitated by the legal environment of the contemporary nation state. The Marind’s livelihoods are threatened by the Indonesian government’s conflation of destructive agricultural policies with economic progress. Chao reveals how sovereign power and economic actors intertwine as they encroach on the lifeways and resources of this vulnerable population.
The committee members were unanimous in their selection of the winner of the 2022-2023 Early Career Book Prize. We all felt that Sophie Chao’s account might open the eyes of many to the critical need for giving priority to ecosystems in planning for prosperous and flourishing human and non-human futures. This text inspires us to learn from human lifeways that engage with their ecological surrounds, suggesting models different to the prevailing one of human dominance. The committee was also struck by the boldness of Chao’s fieldwork. In the Shadow of Palms made us reflect on the tendency to regard doctoral fieldwork as a routine element of the business of academia. Chao committed herself to a fieldwork program that was risky and challenging. The results remind us that outstanding research can be produced through imagination, boldness and persistence.”
2022 – Dr Aim Sinpeng from the University of Sydney for the book Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age: The Yellow Shirts in Thailand, University of Michigan Press, 2021.
ASAA president Professor Katharine McGregor would like to thank the three judges for their generosity in serving on the prize selection committee: Professor Li Narangoa (ANU), Associate Professor Susie Protschky (Deakin) and Dr Yu Tao (UWA).
The judges provided the following citation for the winning book.
In Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age, Aim Sinpeng asks big questions that matter greatly to contemporary Asia and the world: How and why do people in democracies oppose democracy? Does social media facilitate democratic collapse? This winning book undertakes a close examination of the rise of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), or ‘yellow shirts’, in Thailand – the most facebook-saturated country in the world – between 2005 and 2014. Using an approach that combines political theory, historical contextualisation, and quantitative as well as qualitative analysis of social media networks and activity, this book provides a well-written and persuasive account of the collapse of one of Southeast Asia’s oldest democracies. Through well-structured arguments, it offers profound insight into digital media’s democratic and anti-democratic potential.
The judges are impressed by the quality and richness of the original information presented in the book, which provides a detailed and dynamic picture of the contentious politics in contemporary Thailand. Moreover, Sinpeng’s study contributes significantly to knowledge about contemporary anti-democratic movements, one that deserves to resonate not just across but well beyond the field of Asian Studies. This book exemplifies how Asian Studies scholarship can simultaneously deepen the understanding of Asia and Asian countries and engage in critical theoretical debates in various academic disciplines. Accordingly, the judges believe this book appeals to a broad readership, from area specialists in Thai and Southeast Asian politics to political sociology theorists, from professional academic researchers to interested members of the public. The judges are pleased to see the emergence of inspiring scholarship, as demonstrated by Sinpeng’s book, among Australia-based early-career researchers in Asian studies.
2020 – Dr Vannessa Hearman, Unmarked Graves: Death and Survival in the Anti-Communist Violence in East Java, Indonesia (ASAA Southeast Asia Publication Series.) NUS Press and University of Hawaii Press, Singapore and Hawaii, 2018
