A panel of judges was recently appointed to select the winner of the Wang Gungwu Prize for the best article in Asian Studies Review (ASR) for 2024. The panel has now decided on the winner.

The President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA), Associate Professor David Hundt, announced that the winner is Associate Professor Jenny Munro (The University of Queensland).

Associate Professor Munro’s article, ‘West Papuan ‘Housewives’ with HIV: Gender, Marriage and Inequality in Indonesia’, was deemed a worthy winner. According to the judges, the article ‘is outstanding as a contribution to knowledge of the cultural aetiology of disease in a contemporary colonial setting.  In this broadly-based but intimate study, Munro argues that the discourse of ‘housewife’ as innocent victim increases the vulnerability of West Papuan women to HIV while standing in the way of culturally appropriate measures of education and treatment. The panel found the article important, insightful, and informed’.

The winning article was published in Volume 48, Issue 1 of ASR (March 2024). It can be downloaded for free on the journal’s website, along with previous winners of the Prize, at this link.

The Prize is named in honour of Professor Wang Gungwu, the distinguished historian who has made significant contributions to scholarship on Asia, not only in Australia but also in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Professor Wang was also instrumental in the formation of the ASAA in 1976 and served as its president.

The Wang Gungwu Prize is valued at $1,500.

On behalf of the ASAA, Associate Professor David Hundt warmly congratulated the winner on her excellent article and expressed thanks to the members of the 2024 judging committee: Professor Antonia Finnane (University of Melbourne), who chaired the panel, and Professor Tim Allender (University of Sydney) and Associate Professor Chris Tan (Nanjing University).