Nicholas Farrelly, BAS (Hons) (ANU), MPhil, DPhil (Oxford)
Research Fellow, School of International, Political and Strategic Studies
Email: nicholas.farrelly@anu.edu.au
Biographical statement
My research stretches across the Southeast Asian region and focuses on relationships between government control, spatial organisation and political conflict. I have examined these themes in northern Burma, northeast India and southwest China. While studying these borderland areas I have continued to research, write and lecture about Thailand, a country at the heart of some of my oldest academic interests. In 2006 I co-founded a website on mainland Southeast Asia called New Mandala. It offers regular analysis of social and political issues in Thailand and Burma, and the other countries of the region. My research is taking on an increasingly comparative flavour as I develop field sites outside the parts of mainland Southeast Asia that I know best. In my current position I convene the new undergraduate program in the study of peace, conflict and war. I also provide commentary for the Australian and international media, particularly at times of acute public interest in Southeast Asia and its conflicts.
Research interests
Southeast Asian politics, comparative Asian policing, Burmese military affairs, Thai society, ceasefires and security in northern Burma, Tai ethno-politics, northeast India, blogging.
Key publications
- "'Ak47/M16 Rifle – Rs. 15,000 each': What price peace on the Indo-Burmese frontier?", Contemporary South Asia, Vol.18, No. 3, 2009.
- "Tai Community and Thai border subversions", Chapter in Andrew Walker (ed), Tai Lands and Thailand: Community and State in Southeast Asia, Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2009, pp 64-83.
- "Northern Thailand's Specter of Eviction" (with Andrew Walker), Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 40, No. 3, 2008: pp 373-397.
Career highlights
Rhodes Scholar, Balliol College, Oxford; Co-founder, New Mandala; Sir Peter Holmes Memorial Award 2007, Royal Society for Asian Affairs; Convenor, core courses in the ANU's Master of Asia-Pacific Studies program; Presenter, Thailand in Crisis and Burma Votes 2010 podcast and vodcast series; Postdoctoral Fellow, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (2010 - 2011).
