This website is no longer active but remains online as an archive of the work of the Asian Migrations Research Theme, which ran between 2012 and 2016. Some of its work has been succeeded by the Centre for Global Migrations.
Go to the Centre for Global Migrations website.
The wide interdisciplinary scope of the Asian Migrations Research Theme is reflected in the interests and disciplines of the researchers, visiting scholars and postgraduate students affiliated with the research theme.
The Asian Migrations Research Theme includes in its membership three theme directors, a steering committee, and affiliated researchers. Our Visiting Scholars scheme ensures that we are able to benefit from connections with scholars from outside the Otago region.
Theme Directors
Associate Professor Jacob Edmond, Department of English and Linguistics
Associate Professor Edmond's research focuses on cross-cultural encounters and globalisation in contemporary poetry in Chinese, Russian, and English. He has a particular interest in questions of exile, diaspora and cross-cultural exchanges as they relate to the East Asian region.
For more on his research and publications, visit his department webpage
Professor Henry Johnson, Department of Music
Professor Johnson studied as an undergraduate student in music at Dartington College of Arts, and then studied ethnomusicology at University of London. He holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford. His teaching and research interests are in the field of ethnomusicology, particularly the creative and performing arts of Asia and its diasporas. His recent books include The Koto (Hotei, 2004), Performing Japan (Global Oriental, 2008; co-edited with Jerry Jaffe), and The Shamisen (Brill, 2010). His article on Japanese animation, music education and cultural nationalism was published in Animation Journal (2009).
For more on his research and publications, visit his department webpage
Associate Professor Jacqueline Leckie, Head of Department, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology
Associate Professor Leckie's Asian research focuses on the history of the Indian diaspora in the South Pacific. She is especially interested in questions of identity, ethnicity, racism, gender and inter-ethnic relations. She is the author of Indian Settlers: The Story of a New Zealand South Asian Community (Otago University Press, 2007), a collaborative project with the descendants of New Zealand's Indian pioneers. She also wrote To Labour with the State (1997); edited Development in an Insecure and Gendered World (2009); co-edited Localizing Asia in Aotearoa (with P. Voci, 2011); Recentring Asia: Histories, Encounters, Identities (with J. Edmond and H. Johnson (2011)) and Labour in the South Pacific (with C. Moore and D. Munro, 1990). She is currently writing a book provisionally titled 'Colonizing Madness in Fiji'.
For more on her research and publications, visit her department webpage