UHM LuceSEA Transitions: Environment, Society, and Change

Aloha, welcome to our UHM LuceSEA Transitions Project! This project focuses on how socio-economic and political shifts are transforming Southeast Asia (SEA) societies in a time of accelerated climate and environmental change. We are a research cluster of UHM scholars who study SEA environmental transitions, that is, the transformation from a rural agrarian society to one that is predominantly urbanized, industrialized, and market-based. Our UHM community of researchers has collaborated with SEA colleagues for decades to document how the interconnections between rural and urban areas and the diversification of household economies have created places of mobility in which households shift between agricultural and industrial pursuits. 

Educating generations of SEA graduate students from UHM and beyond has also created enduring links to in-country colleagues who are now professionals. Our project strengthens and expands these relationships, towards long-term sustained intellectual collaboration and engagement. Our project has two primary goals: 
(1) building research parity in studying agrarian transitions by bringing more SEA-based colleagues into the research process; and 
(2) producing innovative, accessible and engaged scholarly research and curricula on different dimensions of SEA agrarian transitions.

This website is a living repository of our project outcomes, engaged scholarship and growing networks that continue to persist beyond the project.