In Summer 2025, faculty and graduate students from Chiang Mai University, the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, the East-West Center, and other Southeast Asian institutions came together in Chiang Mai for a month-long field school designed to facilitate experiential, interdisciplinary learning, strengthen academic and research capacity among graduate students, and encourage the building of long-term regional research networks. The students attended workshops on topics in contemporary Southeast Asian Studies, proposal writing and fieldwork methods prior to conducting preliminary fieldwork in two Karen villages in Chiang Mai. The field school ended with the students returning to the university to conduct collaborative data analysis and present their findings.
This field school was part of the UHM LuceSEA grant titled “Transitions: Environment, Society, and Change,” focused on understanding socio-environmental transformations in Southeast Asia. This field school aimed to train the next generation of Southeast Asian scholars in field-based environmental research through cross-cultural collaboration and knowledge exchange, and grow regional networks.
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