Abhinav Ghosh wrote a review of Memory in the Mekong in the Harvard Educational Review. Here are some key excerpts:

Underlining Anderson’s theorization of nations as imagined communities is a perspective that these communities are inclusive and homogeneous, where people assemble together under a common language or shared cultural artifacts. Memory in the Mekong: Regional Identity, Schools, and Politics in Southeast Asia, edited by Will Brehm and Yuto Kitamura, complicates Anderson’s conceptualization by distinguishing national and regional identity formation in Southeast Asia as exclusionary, contested, and incomplete. 

…

This seems to closely reflect the overall contribution of the volume—to not be overtly critical or dismissive of the educational attempts to forge a regional identity in the Mekong, but to show the complexities and nuances that come with such work.

Indeed, every chapter in the book demonstrates this with remarkable clarity.

…

This parting thought is, perhaps, illustrative of the biggest strength of this volume: the ability to highlight and hold tensions and complexities without offering generalizable solutions or simplistic conclusions. Across the chapters, even though readers are transported from one country to another, the thematic consistency of the book affords them the opportunity to see similarities and differences. 

…

In the foreword to this book, renowned Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul notes that a scholarly enterprise “succeeds when it leaves readers with more questions than answers” (x). On that count, this volume delivers aplenty.

You can also watch it on Facebook.

It’s an honour to receive the 2022 Book Award from the Globalisation and Education Special Interest Group of the Comparative and International Education Society! Read one of the reviews below or buy the book here.

How exactly does education underpin a regional identity across Southeast Asia? Is it even possible or desirable to establish a common identity across the diverse peoples of Southeast Asia? And how might a regional identity exist alongside national identities, which are also deeply contested within countries?  These are the questions my new co-edited collection, Memory in the Mekong: Regional Identity, Schools, and Politics in Southeast Asia, sets out to answer. The book pulls together over three years of research conducted in Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam.

I had the pleasure of co-organizing, with Maren Elfert from Kings College, an event where Arjun Appadurai discussed UNESCO’s new report on the futures of education, which he helped co-write. Over 300 people attended the online event. I found the conversation most stimulating when the concept of the nation-state came up.

A new review essay by Adélaïde Martin in the French journal Moussons puts Cambodia for Sale in conversation with Les Vagabonds et la dette, which was written by Steven Prigent. Martin concludes:

In addition to contributing to knowledge of the transformations of rural realities, the richness of ethnographic details and interest in everyday life, these books pave the way for an exploration of the links between education, privatization, power and patronage network. 

Thanks for the excellent review and looking forward to reading an English translation of Prigent’s book!

Dr. Magda Nutsa Kobakhidze reviewed my book, Cambodia for Sale. She writes:

This eloquent and sophisticated book deserves a broad audience through classrooms, conferences and publications. Those interested in privatisation of education, private tutoring, the political economy, Southeast Asian studies and ethnographic research, and especially comparative education scholars, cannot afford to overlook Cambodia for Sale: Everyday Privatization in Education and Beyond.

Read the whole review here. You can find the book here.

Oxford’s Department of Education held its Students Ongoing Research In Educational Studies (STORIES) Conference between 15-16 March, 2021. The theme was Resilience, Resistance & Reflexivity. I was invited to join a panel discussion with Dr. Jason Arday and Prof. Arathi Sriprakash. Here are my remarks:

This is the first presentation I gave to launch my new book, Cambodia for Sale. The book will be officially released on March 30, 2021. Details here. This presentation was given on March 15, 2021 to the Centre for Public Policy Research lunchtime seminar at King’s College. Event details here.