As part of the Center’s Henry Luce Foundation grant, Social Justice in SE Asia (now in its fifth year), the Center has sponsored a wide variety of activities that have involved our students and faculty, as well as visiting scholars and social justice practitioners, all of whom have made contributions to the study of Southeast Asia at our university and beyond. We highlight four of these initiatives below.
The Rappler Internships
In the past two summers, the Center has focused its Luce-funded “social justice” internships on sending students to work with Rappler, the Quezon City-based media outlet ( https://www.rappler.com/ ). In Summer 2024, two UW-Madison undergraduates, Isa Whitten and Bella Toledo, served as our first interns at Rappler. This past summer (2025) UW’s Rappler interns were Annika Webb and Ty Javier (pictured below) Below they have shared some reflections on their experiences.
Isa Whitten & Bella Toledo (Summer 2024): The Rappler Internship challenged us to get out of our comfort zone and gave us the opportunity of a lifetime to spend a summer in the Philippines. We got to be fully immersed in Philippine culture as we learned how to report on various current events and social issues. Rappler is a competitive space, where supervisors and journalists will always be pushing you to grow and make better content. While the learning curve was difficult for us, we learned how to take initiative in our projects. Rappler won’t put everything you need to succeed in your hands; oftentimes, you will have to figure it out yourself or with the help of other interns. At the end of the day, it was a thrilling experience to be at the heart of Philippine news and reporting, and we felt like we were walking amongst superheroes – journalists who were really changing the world. As Filipino Americans, we are also grateful that we had the chance to come face to face with the intimacies and complexities of our culture, which allowed us to know more about ourselves. Most of all, we felt extremely lucky to experience the Philippines and the Rappler internship together. Living together and working together in the heart of Metro Manila gave us memories that we will never forget!
Annika Webb & Ty Javier (Summer 2025): Working at Rappler was challenging, being thrown into a country where you know nearly nothing on how things work, who the key people were, and nothing could be assumed. Often, as we covered events or wrote articles, it was necessary to learn on the fly: Who was the person just mentioned? What did that acronym mean? What is a POGO? Like Isa and Bella, we felt that “at the end of the day, it was a thrilling experience to be at the heart of Philippine news and reporting, and we felt like we were walking amongst superheroes – journalists who were really changing the world.” “While covering the Business and Economics section” (reports Ty), “I tried to stay away from politics, but it quickly became clear how deeply embedded it is, and how corruption can eat into everything from education funding to infrastructure projects.” As Filipino American students our free time was spent immersing ourselves in the culture and history of the Philippines. For some of us, it was the first time visiting our families’ homeland. We are grateful we had the chance to come face to face with the intimacies and complexities of our culture, which in turn, allowed us to know more about ourselves. We thank the Center for making this program possible, and to our colleagues at Rappler for generously sharing their knowledge and their country.
Isa Whitten and Bella Toledo at Rappler Summer 2024
Annika Webb (2nd from Left) and Ty Javier (far right) at Rappler Summer 2025
The Hmong Study Abroad Program
In June 2025, Professor Ian Baird (Geography) successfully led a Hmong Studies Consortium-organized study abroad program focused on Hmong in Thailand. Nine students (eight undergrads from UW-Madison and one graduate student from the University of Minnesota) participated in the month-long program. Many of the students who joined were Hmong Americans. Some students are planning to obtain certificates in Southeast Asian Studies. The study abroad started and ended in Chiang Mai, with the highlight of the program being homestays with Hmong families in six villages in four provinces of northern Thailand (Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phayao and Nan). Students were able to gain firsthand knowledge about the everyday lives of Hmong people in Thailand. Students, in addition to being able to organize and implement their own personalized research projects related to a wide range of topics associated with Hmong in Thailand. All the students received partial scholarships from the Center’s Luce Foundation grant. In Summer 2026, the study abroad program is expected to run again, although this time the program will be led by Professor Mai Na Lee (History and Asian American Studies) at the University of Minnesota.
Students learning how to dye Hmong Batik cloth in Chiang Mai province
Students and villagers up on Phu Chi Fa mountain on the Thailand-Laos border in Chiang Rai province
The CMU Conference, Summer 2025
In recent years, there has been increased interest in various aspects of the “decolonization of Southeast Asia Studies.” However, “decolonization” can take on many forms, and can be imagined in an array of different ways. In the United States, the focus has often been on putting more emphasis on increasing the number of Southeast Asian faculty and encouraging increased participation of Southeast Asian diasporic communities. In Southeast Asia, however, more emphasis has been put on rethinking how the territories and borders associated with Southeast Asia are imagined and defined. Indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia also have their own varied ideas about decolonization in the region. Sometimes it is about who is involved, in other cases it is more about the ideas that are being emphasized. There are undoubtedly many perspectives and theoretical ways of thinking about this important topic, but issues related to knowledge production, and the dissemination of knowledge are always at the forefront.
Between July 17-19, 2025, the Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD) at Chiang Mai University and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with generous financial support provided through the Social Justice in Southeast Asia grant from the Luce Foundation, organized a well-attended conference on the theme of “Decolonizing Southeast Asian Studies” at Chiang Mai University. Almost 100 scholars from all over Southeast Asia—as well as North America, Europe and other parts of Asia—presented a diverse array of inspiring ideas related to this important topic. Indicating the level of interest, almost as many scholars and graduate students attended as observers. The keynote speakers were Dr. Thiti Jamkajornkeiat and Dr. Willem Van Schendel. Following the successful three-day conference, the organizers, led by Dr. Chayan Vaddhanaphuti from RCSD and Dr. Ian Baird from UW-Madison are collaborating with presenters to publish many of the most important and insightful papers presented during this ground-breaking conference. Stay tuned for more!
Chayan Vaddhanaphuti and Ian Baird introducing the conference
Plenary Session at Decolonizing Southeast Asian Studies Conference at Chiang Mai University
Established in 2021 with support from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Justice in Southeast Asia Lab (JSEALab) at UW-Madison promotes collaboration between academics and practitioners to address social justice issues in Southeast Asia. Now in its fifth year, the Lab supports translation work, student mentorship, public lectures, and workshops that connect scholars in Southeast Asia and North America. In 2024–2025, highlights included a residency by Thai archivist Anon Chawalawan, events on the crisis in Myanmar, and a spring anti/AUTHORITARIAN graduate workshop featuring international participants and keynotes. The Lab’s Justice in Translation series published open-access materials on Thai constitutionalism and political dissent. A major initiative, the Article 112 Project, focused on Thailand’s lèse-majesté law, produced research, creative projects, and translations—most notably a 400-page collection of letters by imprisoned human rights lawyer Arnon Nampa. The project also hosted webinars on academic freedom and a student advocacy seminar. The Lab continues to be a hub for interdisciplinary, justice-oriented Southeast Asian studies. For more information about the Justice in Southeast Asia Lab or to get involved, please see our website, follow us on Facebook or Bluesky, or contact Tyrell Haberkorn [tyrell.haberkorn@wisc.edu]. A more detailed summary of the JSEALab’s recent events can be found on their website.