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The RSAA blog publishes new posts every week, covering the whole range of Asian current affairs, culture, travel, exploration and recent history from the Levant to East Asia. Browse our recent posts!
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How do Qatari Humanitarian Diplomats Navigate Complex Political Landscapes?
Mona Hedaya is a Research Fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Qatar When we think of Qatar, images of gleaming skyscrapers and world-class sports events might come to mind. But there’s another side to this Gulf state making waves globally: its humanitarian diplomacy (HD). How does such a small nation make…
Remembering the Amu Darya
Oscar Fraser Turner is Co-Founder of Project Amu Darya which aims to record an oral history of the Amu Darya River Dusk fell across the muddy river. Somewhere in the bushes, the shrill howl of jackals serenaded the dying light. As their calls quietened, everything else grew louder – the hum of critters, the gurgle…
Maldives Strategy in the Indo-Pacific
Dr Athaulla A Rasheed is a former diplomat for the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is now an academic in the Department of Pacific Affairs at The Australian National University President Dr Mohamed Muizzu’s October 2024 visit to India has heightened the developing relationship between Maldives and India. This favours the Indo-Pacific strategy that seeks to…
At Kazan BRICS Summit, Russia’s Eurasian Identity Looms Large
Eugene Chausovsky is Senior Director for Analytical Development and Training at the New Lines Institute Leaders from across the globe descended upon Russia on October 22-24 for the annual BRICS summit, which has emerged as one of the premier gatherings of the non-Western world. Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the heads of state of the…
Gaza by the Sea: Palestine’s Cultural Flagship
Mahmoud Muna is a bookseller and cultural activist in Jerusalem and co-editor of Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Culture As I write, it has been a year since Israel launched unparalleled destruction against Gaza, in a war on Palestinian people and Palestinian culture that is in explicit violation of the Fourth Geneva…
The Taiwan Story: How a Small Island will Dictate the Global Future
Kerry Brown is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London. He is the author of the newly published book The Taiwan Story. In mid-October 2024, the second occurrence of military exercises around the coast of Taiwan, which the Chinese call `Joint Sword’, have apparently just concluded. The…
Following the Great Mongolian Road: Biocultural Diversity and Intangible Heritage in the Mongolian Gobi Desert
Simon Phillips is an ethnobotanist with the Centre for Biocultural Diversity, University of Kent and Chris McCarthy is a Silk Road Scholar and Conservationist At a dry river bed in the Mongolian Gobi desert near the Chinese border, camels slowly drink water from holes dug by nomadic herders to the water table a little below…
The Struggle for Safe Drinking Water in Coastal Bangladesh
Dr Sonia Ferdous Hoque is an Environmental Social Scientist, working as a Senior Research Associate in Water Security and Society at the University of Oxford When you think of coastal Bangladesh, picture a vast, flat landscape where the land meets the sea in a delicate balance shaped by both human intervention and nature’s forces. This…
Politics and Religion: Sectarianism in the Middle East
Professor Simon Mabon is Director of the Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation (SEPAD) project at Lancaster University’s Richardson Institute and Chair in International Politics On 12 January, US and UK militaries struck targets across Yemen in an effort to prevent Houthi attacks against ships passing through the Red Sea. The Houthis, a violently intolerant Islamist group…
Ismaili Tradition and its Global Communities in the Modern World
Wafi A. Momin is an Assistant Professor and Head of the Ismaili Special Collections Unit at The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London The Ismailis form a branch of Shia Islam and, though numerically much smaller in comparison to the Ithna‘ashari (‘Twelver’) brand of the Shias, are among the most prosperous and progressive of the Muslim communities…
No Change for Turkmenistan
Anabel Loyd has spent much of her adult life travelling in search of the lost, forgotten or obscure. She has been a regular columnist for the Indian Telegraph for many years and has a particular interest in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Indian history. I have spent much of the past four years, literarily…
Mongolian Archaeology Tomorrow
Dr Joshua Wright is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen. He is a landscape archaeologist with a research focus on East Asia. A national museum focused on Chinggis Khaan opened in Ulaanbaatar in 2022. In November of 2022, the National University of Mongolia hosted a conference to open their…
Asia’s Stock Markets, From The Ground Up
Herald van der Linde is the author of Asia’s Stock Market: From the Ground Up, an Adjunct Assistant Professor in finance at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and HSBC’s Chief Asian Equity Strategist. “Asia stock markets rallied as earnings rise” or “Asian stocks sink as COVID spreads” are commonly found headlines on newspaper’s…
The Mongolian Mindset on Uncertainty: Insights for Learning
Dr Saranzaya Manalsuren is a Senior Lecturer at LSBU Business School, London South Bank University. Her research focuses on themes related to sustainable and equitable managerial practices, supporting the equality, diversity, and inclusion agenda, emotional and cultural intelligence and leadership. The latest IMF report highlights a surge in global uncertainty attributed to a myriad…
The Persistent Challenge of ‘Islamic Exceptionalism’
Hadi Enayat is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations at the Aga Khan University in London. He is a political sociologist specialising in the Middle East with a particular focus on religion, law, political theology and intellectual history. The notion of national or civilisational ‘exceptionalism’ was first used in…
The Crisis of Responsibility to Protect in Myanmar: Failing to Prevent and Respond to Atrocities
Dr Noel M Morada is a Visiting Research Professor at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Conflict Resolution, Atrocities Prevention and Human Security, Chulalongkorn University. He is also a Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Queensland and Co-Chair of the Asia Pacific Working Group at Global…
Sufism in the 21st Century: A Living Tradition
Dr Ines Aščerić-Todd is a Lecturer in Arabic and Middle Eastern Cultures at the University of Edinburgh Sufism – Islamic mysticism – encompasses a set of beliefs and practices used by many Muslims as a way of drawing closer to God and attaining personal experience or knowledge of the Divine. Sufism has a long history…
Religious Regulations in Malaysia and their Implications: Lessons from Mentega Terbang
Dr Choong Pui Yee is a senior lecturer at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at University Malaya. She teaches ASEAN studies and security issues in Southeast Asia. In January, a director and a producer of the Malaysian fictional film Mentega Terbang were charged with “wounding the feelings” of others under Section 298 of the Penal…