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The Alliance Updated
By Robert Cribb
The IIAS-NIAS Strategic Alliance took a major step in January 1999, when the Institut für Asienkunde (Institute for Asian Affairs, IfA) became a member. Based in Hamburg, the IfA plays a major role in bridging the gap between German academic research and the provision of information on contemporary developments in Asia to German governments (state and federal) and business. It also plays an important role in encouraging co-operation between Asian Studies centres in the decentralized German system.
The Director of the IfA, Dr Werner Draguhn, has worked closely with the Alliance in the past, especially in the formation of PEARL (Programme for Europe-Asia Research Linkages). The institutional partnership will now provide a basis for the IfA to join the Alliance in other common activities, including seminars, conferences, and joint research programmes.
New Director for NIAS
A new director, Professor Per Ronnås, took over at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies on 1 May 1999, replacing Robert Cribb, who will return to the University of Queensland, Australia, at the end of June. Professor Ronnås is an economic geographer with special interests in Vietnam and Cambodia. He was formerly at the Stockholm School of Economics.
Alliance Fellows
The first Nordic-Netherlands Research Fellow, Dr Victor van Bijlert, was resident at NIAS for six months from September 1998 to February 1998, conducting a research project on the modernization of the Hindu canon in colonial Bengal. The present holder of the fellowship, Dr Mario Rutten, also based in Copenhagen, is engaged in a comparative project on rural entrepreneurs in India, Malaysia, and India. A third research fellow, who will be based in Leiden, is expected to be appointed in late spring.
Asia Update
Following on last year's successful Asia Updates in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, the Alliance held a new Update in Copenhagen earlier this year. Speakers were Christer Gunnarsson, Mario Rutten, Aidan Foster-Carter, Birger Riis-Jørgensen, and Linda Jakobson. As part of the Alliance's broader aim to serve a wider European community, the programme was repeated in Riga, the capital of Latvia. A further Update is planned for Brussels in the second half of 1999.
Alliance conference on Mongolia
The Alliance partners will co-operate in organizing a conference on contemporary social and economic developments in Mongolia in October 1999. Further details will be available in the next issue of the newsletter and on the Web-sites of Alliance partners.
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