2027 SEA GradCon at Harvard
Call for Papers
Southeast Asia in Context: space, place, territoriality
April 3-4, 2027, Harvard University
We are pleased to announce the 2027 Southeast Asian Graduate Student Conference at Harvard University. This year’s theme, “Southeast Asia in Context: Space, Place, and Territoriality”, invites participants to explore how Southeast Asian countries, peoples and communities situate themselves in relation to one another and to the rest of the world.
What does it mean to locate Southeast Asia in context? Movements and settlements, attachments and displacements, the making and crossing of borders, and the expansion and contraction of networks have continually shaped the region. Grounded—or ungrounded—by [im]mobility and transnational [dis]connection, people and communities rewrite the local in the era of the global and orient themselves spatially amid digital spacelessness. These processes produce overlapping geographies that connect some places and communities while dividing others. To consider Southeast Asia “in context” is thus to ask how these relationships shape places and forms of belonging, and how people in Southeast Asia understand themselves and their place in the world.
We invite graduate students across disciplines to interpret space, place, and territoriality both materially and immaterially. Papers will span a range of topics on spatiality and Southeast Asia interpreted both materially and immaterially. Such topics could include (but are certainly not limited to) concrete geographies and environments; infrastructures and processes of [trans]national movements; religious, commercial and digital networks within, across and outside the region; and political and economic spaces and solidarities. Rather than prescribing a single scale of inquiry, the theme encourages movement among the intimate, local, national and global, and reflection on how these scales are themselves constructed.
This conference aims to support graduate students with all stages of their research, be it early dissertation research, fieldworks, chapters of dissertation or job-market papers. The key goal of this conference is to afford researchers the space to present their research and receive in-depth feedback, as well as build a sustainable scholarly network.
CONFERENCE INFO
The conference will be held in-person at the Harvard University Asia Center on April 3-4 (across one and a half days). The program will feature four or five panels, keynote address, and a professionalization workshop.
Friday, April 2nd - Optional pre-conference dinner reception kick-off
Saturday, April 3rd - Day 1 (Full day)
Sunday, April 4th - Day 2 (Half Day)
ELIGIBILITY
We welcome submissions from graduate students at all stages of their studies, including pre-docs, masters and doctoral students, as well as post-doctoral scholars who received their PhD this year. We regrettably cannot accept abstracts from full-time faculty.
TRAVEL SUPPORT
The conference will be hosted in person. As building a scholarly community is central to the conference, all participants are expected to attend and engage in the full program. We are committed to making participation accessible to everyone and will do our best to ensure travel cost does not discourage prospective participants from submitting an application. Given our limited funding, need-based travel support might be available to reimburse part of the overall travel expenses, including transportation and accommodation. Requests will be considered individually, taking into account financial need and travel distance. We kindly ask participants to explore other funding opportunities through their home institutions and outside sources as well. If travel support is needed, please provide an expected budget plan and a 100-word statement of need in the application form.
SUBMISSIONS
Please submit the following through this link by December 1st, 2026.
Requirements are:
● A paper title and abstract of no more than 200 words
● A 100-word maximum bio
● A 2-page maximum CV in a single PDF document
● (if needed) Budget plan and a statement on budget of need in a single PDF document; more information noted in the application form
Accepted participants will be notified by mid-January. Accepted presenters will be asked to submit their papers (no more than 8,000 words) by March 3, 2027.
For any clarifications, please contact gseahub@gmail.com.