[Talk] Down on the Waterfront: A Reflective History of Carbon, Globalization and Ecology in Penang.
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Details
Date: Thursday, 29 August 2024
Time: 4pm – 5.30pm
Venue: Conference Hall, Penang Institute
Entrance to this event is FREE.
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About The Speaker
David Biggs is a Professor of Southeast Asian and environmental history at the University of California – Riverside and a 2024 Fulbright Scholar at Universiti Sains Malaysia. His research explores environmental history and techno-politics in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. His first book, Quagmire: Nation-Building and Nature in the Mekong Delta (University of Washington, 2011), explores historic intersections of politics and nature on the waterways of the Mekong Delta. His second book, Footprints of War: Militarized Landscapes in Vietnam (2018) is now available as an open-access book. It examines a long-term, social and environmental history of military conflict in Vietnam. Biggs is a frequent collaborator on projects involving the use of geographic information systems (GIS) to study land cover change and toxic legacies at former military sites, and his work has appeared in numerous journals, the New York Times, and local venues. He’s worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Harvard University (2009), a Fulbright Scholar in Vietnam (2011), an NEH Fellow (2013) and a Rachel Carson Fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich (2017). For more info see: https://davidbiggs.net .
Moderator
Dr. Tan Chee Seng is a Senior Lecturer in the History Section at the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). He obtained his doctorate in Chinese Studies (Chinese History) from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2017, and both his MA (Southeast Asian History) and BA (Hons) from USM. He specializes in modern Chinese history and Overseas Chinese history. His articles have been published in scholarly journals and books. He was a Visiting Student at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica (2010 and 2011). He has been invited to deliver several talks and keynote speeches in Malaysia and China.
Abstract
For more than a century, the majority of works on Southeast Asia’s modern history have grappled with the problem of the nation-state—from origins to possible futures. From Hang Tuah to Ho Chi Minh, nationalist and anti-colonial themes appear in most works. Since the rise of regional and global history in the 1950s, however, Southeast Asian historians have looked to the region’s connections – material, commercial, religious and ecological – to describe shared, regional histories. In our present era of climate change and accelerating globalization, historians have a special task to explore and record this shared regional and global past. Urban waterfronts like Penang offer a unique window onto this history, as they were important nodes for global trade, migration, and the incredible flows of energy biofuels, coal, petroleum and electricity – needed to fuel this activity. This talk draws on the concept of carbon flows – the production, consumption and geography of energy – as a lens for examining Penang’s waterfront history and locating it within a shared, regional and global past. Part of a larger “Southeast Asian Waterfronts Project,” this talk will share preliminary reflections on Penang’s waterfront history coming from Professor Biggs’ research as a 2024 Fulbright Scholar in the History Section, School of Humanities at Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Event Summary
On the 29 th of August, 2024, Professor David Briggs, a professor of Southeast Asian and environmental history at the University of California, delivered a talk hosted by Penang Institute. The talk was about the reflective history of Carbon, Globalization and Ecology in Penang, moderated by Dr. Tan Chee Seng .
Drawing from his experience and studies conducted across countries such China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, Professor Briggs discusses the importance of studying Southeast Asia’s regional and global history, focusing on urban waterfronts like Penang. He also highlights the role of Penang as a key node for energy flows, as Penang’s history of global trade and migration facilitates the transfer of energy biofuels, coal, petroleum and electricity across regions. The talk used this concept of carbon flows to examine Penang's waterfront
history and its place within a shared regional and global past.
The talk subsequently delved into the carbon flow in the modern context of Penang, from its sustainability to government responsibilities. Professor Briggs also engaged in a dynamic Q&A session with the audience, providing them with further insight into Penang’s ecological landscape when compared to other countries.
Event Highlights