Proposed Thesis Title: Politics and Knowledge: A Case Study of Enterprise and Scholarship of the Straits (Malayan) Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1878-1942 / Southeast Asian Studies
Supervisor: Associate Professor Timothy P. Barnard

My name is Chen Che-wei from Taiwan. After receiving a M.A. in history from National Chi Nan University and completing the mandatory military service, I began to work as an administrative staff in the Department of Academic Affairs and Instrument Service at Academia Sinica in Taiwan. I had worked here for about three years when I decided to pursue a PhD to broaden my horizons. Before I come to National University of Singapore, I had studied a PhD programme in history at National Taiwan University for three years.

My research interest lies in Empires and modern Southeast Asia, particularly British colonization in British Malaya, Japanese interests and colonization in Southeast Asia before WWII, and their knowledge construction in British Malaya and the Malay World.I am also interested in the study of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. My first book, The Colonizer and the Immigrant: Sir Cecil Clementi Smith, Sir Cecil Clementi and Singapore Chinese Societies (in Chinese), which is based on my master thesis, discusses two governors’ governance of the Straits Settlements with specific examples, especially focusing on their relations with Chinese people and societies in Singapore during the 1880s and 1930s. The book was published by the South Seas Society (Singapore). I am grateful to have the opportunity to share my research with the local society.

In my PhD study, my research will focus on knowledge construction in British Malaya and the Malay culture through a case study of the Straits (Malayan) Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. The proposed study aims to examine how the British perceived this region, how the Society introduced and incorporated knowledge of the Malay and British Malaya into a system of modern knowledge production, and how the Society interacted with the tradition of Asian studies and British colonization.