Seng Guo-Quan

I am a social historian of Southeast Asia and China, with a special interest in the transregional flow and exchange of commodities, people and cultures. Born and raised in Singapore, I have been trained in History at the University of Cambridge (BA), National University of Singapore (MA), and the University of Chicago (PhD). My first book, Strangers in the Family: Gender, Patriliny and the Chinese in Colonial Indonesia (Cornell University Press, 2023) approached racial formation in Asia as a question of gender and sexuality exchanges structured by encounters between diasporic and indigenous communities in a colonial setting. Pivoting away from postcolonial studies’ fixation on Eurasian intimacies, the book reveals an under-explored history of inter-Asian intimacies that is, like its Eurasian counterpart, formative of a settler identity.

I am now working on my second book, Market Settlers: Shopkeeper Capitalism, Race and State Making in Southeast Asia, 1870-1970, which looks at Chinese migration to present day Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia and how ethno-nationalisms were triggered by their domination of local and regional markets. The book aims to reshape how we understand racial capitalism, the global Chinese diaspora and the history of modern Southeast Asia.  Drawing on multi-lingual colonial and indigenous sources, and combining social and intellectual with business history methods, the book provides a narrative counter to prevailing Atlantic world-centric arguments about the rise of racial capitalism in world history, or that see Chinese migration to Southeast Asia as simply a form of settler colonialism.

I am also co-editing a special issue on the history of capitalism in Southeast Asia for the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, slated to appear in October 2027. As a founding member of the History + AI Lab (NUS Provost Office Grant: $350,000), I am writing a major grant proposal to develop an AI-assisted model for researching racial tensions amidst disruptions to global trade and migratory flows since the 1870s. As Co-Investigator on The Jawi AI Project, I am part of a team working on making the Jawi-scripted Utusan Melayu (1939-1969) OCR-searchable in a transliterated, romanized form.

I am a firm believer that historians have to engage and serve the communities they write about. I am currently serving on multiple advisory boards and panels for the National Heritage Board (Asian Civilisations Museum, The Peranakan Museum, National Collection Advisory Panel, and the Singapore Chinese Heritage Gallery) and the National Library Board (LKC Research Fellowship Selection). As Principal Investigator (2023-5) for a NHB Heritage Research Grant project on the history of shopkeepers in Singapore’s Chinatown, my team produced multiple public-facing publications and a community-facing public event. Within the department, I have served on both the undergraduate and graduate studies committees, handled publicity for the Singapore History Prize, and created multiple internships for our students with external partners. On the editorial board of the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies since 2018, I was appointed its Associate Editor in March 2026. I am a co-founder and the main coordinator of the Speaker Series, which has featured 12-14 external speakers each year since 2024.

PUBLICATIONS:

Books:

• 2023                 Strangers in the Family: Gender, Patriliny and the Chinese in Colonial Indonesia (Cornell University Press)
• 2012                 With Loh Kah Seng, Edgar Liao and Lim Cheng Tju, Tangled Strands of Modernity: The University Socialist Club and the Contest for Malaya (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press)

Journal Articles

• 2027                 ‘Tjina Mindering: Credit, Race and the Politics of Late Colonial Market Formation in Indonesia (1900-1942),” in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. (Forthcoming Oct. 2027, accepted Aug. 3, 2026)
• 2026                 ‘Nanyang Popular Culture on Singapore Television (1963–79)’ in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 27(4), 633 – 650.
• 2020                 ‘Revolutionary Cosmopolitanism and its Limits: The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese in Singapore, Medan and Jakarta Compared (1945–1949),’ in Journal of Chinese Overseas, 16(1), 1 – 30.
• 2018                 ‘The Gender Politics of Confucian Family Law: Contracts, Credit and Creole Chinese Bilateral Kinship in Dutch Colonial Java (1850s-1900)’ in Comparative Studies in Society and History, 60(2), 390 – 414.
• 2017                 ‘Fujianese Pioneers and Javanese Kings: Peranakan Chinese Lineage and the Politics of Belonging in West Java, 1890s–2000s’ in Indonesia, 104, 65 – 89.

Book Chapters:

• 2027                ‘Gender, Mobility and Hybridity in the Indian Ocean World (1300s-1800s)’ in Oxford Handbook of Asian Migration and Diaspora. Edited by Rachel Leow and Emma Teng. (Oxford University Press: Forthcoming, accepted on Dec. 8, 2025)
• 2027                 ‘Chinese Migration and New Entrepreneurial Ventures in Early Modern Southeast Asia’ in Cambridge History of Southeast Asia,          Volume II: Early Modern Southeast Asia, ca. 1400-1800. Edited by Leonard Andaya (Volume II), and Barbara Andaya (General Editor) (Cambridge University Press: Forthcoming, accepted on Mar. 4, 2024)

Research Notes and Commentaries:

• 2024                 With Chiara Formichi, Barbara Andaya, Christina Firpo, Chie Ikeya and Taomo Zhou, “Paving the Road Ahead: Women in (post)colonial Southeast Asia (Forum Article)” in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 55(2), 340 – 353.

Other Publications:

• 2025                 With Didi Kwartanada, ‘Chinese Businesses and the Batik Industry in Pekalongan’ in Batik Nyonyas: Three Generations of Art and Entrepreneurship. Peter Lee edited. Singapore: Asian Civilisations Museum. 114 – 121.
• 2025                 ‘A Tailor Street in Singapore’s Chinatown’ in International Institute of Asian Studies, Newsletter. No. 101, Winter, 10-11.
• 2017                 “'How I wished that it could have worked': James Puthucheary's Political-Economic Thought and the Myth of Singapore's                      Developmental Model” in Loh Kah Seng, PJ Thum and Jack Chia ed., Living with Myths in Singapore (Singapore: Ethos, 2017), 93 – 102.

Book Reviews:

• 2025                 ‘Book Review: Charlotte Setijadi, Memories of unbelonging: ethnic Chinese identity politics in post-Suharto Indonesia. University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2023.’ In Asian Studies Review. 1 – 2.
• 2024                 ‘Book Review: Peter Thilly, The Opium Business: A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022.” In Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 55 (2): 356-7.‘Book Review: Tom Hoogervorst, Language Ungoverned: Indonesia's Chinese Print Entrepreneurs, 1911–1949. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, an imprint of Cornell University Press, 2021’ In Journal of Asian Studies. 83 (1): 202–204.
• 2023                 ‘Book Review: RE Hale, The Pioneer Merchants of Singapore: Johnston, Boustead, Guthrie and Others. Singapore: World Scientific    Press, 2022.’ in Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 96(1), no. 324, 166-7.
• 2021                 ‘Book Review: Stan Neal, Singapore, Chinese Migration and the Making of the British Empire, 1819–67. Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2019.’ in The American Historical Review, Vol. 126, Issue 3, September 2021, 1267–1268.‘Book Review: Wasana Wongsurawat, The Crown and the Capitalists: The Ethnic Chinese and the Founding of the Thai Nation. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019’ in Sojourn, 36.1, 2021.