Think Tank (5/2023)

Human Security and Empowerment in Asia: Beyond the Pandemic

Mely Caballero-Anthony, Yoichi Mine, Sachiko Ishikawa

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this edited volume revisits the framework of human security and development. It examines the protection-empowerment nexus as applied to various vulnerable groups and populations affected by the pandemic. While the conventional human security literature has focused on top-down protection, this book offers new perspectives on human security by exploring bottom-up empowerment from both theoretical and practical perspectives. It also encourages readers to rethink the agency of vulnerable people in addressing the challenges posed by the pandemic. Through eight case studies from Southeast Asia and Japan, the contributors to this book demonstrate the importance of empowerment in achieving human security. They focus on the responses of vulnerable groups and communities to multiple threats to their lives, livelihoods, and dignity. The chapters discuss key human security concerns, such as poverty, the environment, food, forced migration, gender, health, aging, peace, and justice – all of which have been compounded and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. An essential resource for students and scholars of human security in the aftermath of COVID-19 and its wider impacts.

Towards Open and Inclusive Regionalism

Sarah Teo, Rocky Intan, Joel Ng

This collection of nine papers offers an insightful look into the opportunities and challenges for ASEAN, Southeast Asia, and the broader region in a period of global uncertainty. The policy prescriptions or implications in these papers would undoubtedly be useful for decision-makers in considering ways to strengthen cooperation on the issues outlined in the s ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) and effectively address the threats to the political and socioeconomic stability in the region.

Shipwrecks and the Maritime History of Singapore

Kwa Chong Guan

On 16 June 2021 the National Heritage Board and ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute announced the successful conclusion of the archaeological excavation of two shipwrecks at the eastern approach to Singapore. This maritime archaeology excavation, the largest in Singapore’s waters, was conducted by the Archaeology Unit of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute over a six-year period. This book documents these two shipwrecks, complemented by essays on Singapore’s maritime history, from Temasek in the fourteenth century through the emergence of country trade in the late eighteenth century. These two shipwrecks challenge us to rethink Singapore’s history as globally connected, determined by what was happening on the seas in and around the island.