We are pleased to invite contributions to ‘COVID-19 and Southeast Asia’, a project intended to encourage reflection upon what the COVID-19 crisis means for Southeast Asia. This project is an initiative of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science (click here for the project webpage).  
 
COVID-19 presents huge challenges to governments, businesses, civil societies, and people from all walks of life, but its impact is highly variegated, affecting society in multiple negative ways, with uneven geographical and socioeconomic patterns. The crisis reveals existing contradictions and in inequalities in society and compels us to question what it means to return to ‘normal’.
 
Despite profound challenges facing the region, critical perspectives on and from Southeast Asia have been underrepresented in many academic forums, apart from a small number of regionally specific initiatives. With this in mind, we are soliciting proposals for short written contributions contemplating post-COVID-19 urban futures in the region, with the following three major themes to be addressed (click the link at the end of this email for more details on each theme):

1. Community-based initiatives in response to COVID-19
2. Movements of different groups of people in and out of Southeast Asia
3. Digital and technological infrastructures and visualisations

We invite proposals from emerging and experienced researchers and/or practitioners for short written contributions – analyses, briefings, or commentaries – that will initiate scholarly engagement with one or more of these themes. As a research centre, we encourage the adoption of wide perspectives, paying attention not only to intra-regional or local dimensions but also to the ways in which Southeast Asia can enter into conversation with its neighbouring regions and the world.

Proposals should be of 100-250 words, titled, and accompanied by a brief biographical introduction to the contributor. When completed, full-length submissions will normally be of no more than 1,500 words. They will be published on a rolling basis on a blog managed by the project team and subsequently compiled into three thematic briefs, to be hosted on the centre’s webpage (http://www.lse.ac.uk/seac).

Contributors may also be invited to participate in a series of online seminars hosted by LSE SEAC in Michaelmas Term 2020/21. Please be in touch if you wish to discuss possible proposals or if you have relevant writings you have published elsewhere that we can call attention to on our own online platform.
 
Deadlines:17 July 2020 (initial proposals); mid-August 2020 (tentative submission of full-length contributions)

To submit proposals and for all other enquiries, please contact: 
Dr Murray Mckenzie, SEAC Research Officer (m.h.mckenzie@lse.ac.uk).