Research: Projects
Faculty Projects
Alexander Dukalskis (PI), "Everyday Politics in North Korea: Understanding, Tracking, and Theorizing Change", Korea Foundation 2020-2021
The North Korean government has grappled with numerous changes to its international environment and domestic society. These developments influence the elite cohesion and regime resilience of North Korea and this research aims to understand how the government adapts amid changing circumstances. This project is motivated by several key questions. How do changes at the “everyday” level influence authoritarian stability and social resistance in North Korea? How do they change economic realities and gender relations for North Koreans? Do they change the modes of control that characterize the North Korean state? How do changes influence policy-relevant thinking about engagement with North Korea?
Alexander Dukalskis (PI), "Chinese Politics and International Relations Lecture Series: Perspectives and Frontiers in Social Science Research", Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, 2019-2022
This program brings distinguished scholars of Chinese politics and international relations to UCD for a public lecture, engagement with students and faculty, and research presentations. Originally conceived of as 6 lectures from 2019 to 2021, the program has been modified due to covid-19. Two lectures have been held as part of the program. Rosemary Foot of Oxford University gave a talk in October 2019 titled "China's Resurgence and US Power: Is the Asia Pacific Political Order Being Renegotiated?". Andrew Walder of Stanford University gave a talk in February 2020 titled "Rebellion and Repression in China, 1966-1969: A Macro Perspective". Subsequent lectures are TBD: https://www.ucd.ie/spire/newsandevents/chinesepoliticsinternationalrelationslectureseries/
Christine Bonnin (Co-PI), together with Ainhoa Gonzalez (UCD), Nguyen Thi Minh Tien (Hanoi University, Co-PI), Truong Thi Anh Tuyet and Ho Ngoc Son (Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry), "Climate Change Vulnerabilities and Resilience in northern upland Vietnam", Irish Aid/Department of Foreign Affairs, Ireland.
Vietnam is one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change, the impacts of which are both socially and spatially uneven. Many ethnic minorities living in the country’s northern upland region depend on natural resources and semi-subsistence agriculture for their livelihoods, which are greatly influenced by extreme weather and hazards. At the same time, households and communities living in challenging environments have often developed coping strategies as well as longer-term adaptations to difficult environmental conditions that may contribute to resilience. However, the prioritisation of scientific and technical knowledges in climate change planning often results in the exclusion or discounting of local, ‘non-expert’ realities. This project adopts an inclusive, participatory approach to assessing climate change vulnerabilities and resilience among ethnic minority communities. It seeks to better understand minority individuals’ and communities’ lived experiences with, and responses to their changing local environmental conditions, and to enable a more complete understanding of the effects of climate change in people’s lives.
Christine Bonnin (Co-PI), together with Tim Gorman (Montclair State University), Truong Thi Anh Tuyet (Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry), Nguyen Thi Minh Tien (Hanoi University), "Migrants on the Move: Changing Migration Strategies and Impacts on Home Communities", Irish Aid/DFA, Montclair State University.
Ethnic minorities compose a quickly growing proportion of Vietnam’s internal migrants. The propensity of minority people to relocate, primarily for economic reasons, poses both challenges and opportunities for rural agrarian home communities and for family members who remain. This research starts from the premise that ethnic minorities in Vietnam are “doubly exposed” to the economic pressures generated by neoliberal globalisation and the environmental pressures generated by climate change. In this context, many ethnic minorities, migrate in search of economic opportunity. While much attention has been paid to the drivers of migration and to untangling the complex interplay of economic and environmental forces, we focus on the impacts it has on migrants’ families and home communities through a comparative focus on research sites in the northern mountainous region and Mekong delta region, and Yao (Dao) and Khmer minority communities, respectively. We explore whether migration helps to spur accumulation in agriculture or hasten on-going processes of de-agrarianisation among minority households.
Helen Lewis (PI), together with Victor Paz (UP Diliman ASP), Wilfredo Ronquillo (formerly at the National Museum of the Philippines) and Dr Peter Lape (University of Washington), “Palawan Island Pre-/Palaeohistory Research Project (PIPRP)” , funded by British Academy, BA CSEAS, Evans Fund, Solheim Foundation for Philippine Archaeology, Rio Tuba, Coral Bay Nickel Mines, Nerc Orads, Henry Luce Foundation, PetroEnergy, The Philodrill Corporation.
The PIPRP was established to investigate the archaeology of prehistoric landscapes in various parts of Palawan Island, SW Philippines, location of Tabon Cave, site of some of the earliest human remains in the region. The project currently involves excavations at an important cemetery and early occupation site, Ille Cave, landscape survey for environmental archaeology, and new investigations at caves on the island of Imorige. Fieldwork takes place from late March-mid June; post-excavation studies take place year-round in Manila, Dublin, Paris and Singapore. The project also offers opportunities to access the collections of the National Museum of the Philippines and the resources of the University of the Philippines (Website: https://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/research/piprp/)
Helen Lewis (Co-PI), together with Simon Kaner (Centre for Japanese Studies, University of East Anglia), Liliana Janik (University of Cambridge), Tatsuo Kobayashi (formerly at Kokugakuin University / Niigata Prefectural Museum of History) and Oki Nakamura , “Shinano-Chikuma River Landscape Project, Japan”
The Shinano-Chikuma River project is investigating the development of historic landscapes along the longest river drainage in Japan. This interdisciplinary and international project includes involvement in the excavation of the Middle Jomon Sanka site in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture, and the use of a range of archaeological and geographical techniques to reconstruct aspects of this remarkable landscape. Throughout Japanese history, rivers have played an essential role in shaping the Japanese landscape and structuring communication, transport and the movement of commodities. Along many of the river systems in Japan, specific conditions have developed which encourage exceptional preservation of archaeological sites. The longest river in Japan is called the Chikuma in Nagano Prefecture where it has its source at Mount Kobushigadake, and the Shinano in Niigata Prefecture, through which it flows before entering the sea at Niigata. (Website: (opens in a new window)https://www.sainsbury-institute.org/project/shinano-chikuma-river-project)
Helen Lewis, together with Joyce White (Penn Museum), Bounhueng Bouasisengpaseuth (National Museum Lao PDR) et al., “Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP)”, funded by Henry R. Luce Foundation; National Geographic Society; National Science Foundation, etc.
Since 2005, MMAP has conducted a groundbreaking collaborative research program of international researchers in this area, including surveys that have identified 69 archaeological sites and excavations at three cave sites. This archaeological fieldwork has yielded thousands of stone and ceramic artifacts, human skeletal remains, and other evidence from over 11,000 years of human habitation in the area. MMAP seeks to resolve long standing archaeological debates on when and how metallurgy and agriculture came to Southeast Asia. This joint project of The Penn Museum and the Department of Heritage, Laos is also helping budding Lao archaeologists and museologists to build capabilities for Lao cultural heritage preservation, by offering training in archaeological disciplines concurrent with research activities (Website: (opens in a new window)https://www.penn.museum/research/project.php?pid=11).
Kathleen James-Chakraborty, "Expanding Agency", the European Research Council
Expanding Agency explores the role that women and members of ethnic minorities, primarily African-Americans, played in transmitting modern architecture and design internationally, including within Europe, between 1920 and 1970. Strands devoted to patronage, journalism, entrepreneurship, and institution building will offer alternatives to accounts that focus primarily on architects. This will expand our understanding of who had agency in this important story and more generally in the shaping of the built environment. Taking a global approach that stresses comparisons across continents will also help build a more nuanced understanding of how architecture, landscape architecture, interior decoration, and the design of furnishing are transformed by new ideas that emanate from a multiplicity of sources. This in turn can help support a more diverse profession that, in the wake of #metoo and Black Lives Matter, is better prepared to engage with a broad public, including to address such social challenges as the integration of migrants and sustainability.
Laëtitia Saint-Loubert, "Research-led teaching project"
Co-designer, with Dr Anita Baksh (LaGuardia Community College, CUNY), of a connected classrooms project on ‘Transoceanic Experiences of Indenture’. The project was part of the 2019-2020 NEH Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities on ‘Migration, Mobility and Sustainability: Caribbean Studies Digital Humanities’.
When implemented, the connected classrooms project would aim to introduce students to experiences of indentured labor in twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature from a transoceanic perspective and work together with an international partner to analyse, interpret and produce a translation of a literary text related to Indian indentureship writing. The connected classrooms project can be accessed (opens in a new window)here.
Naonori Kodate (PI), together with Kazuko Obayashi (Nihon Fukushi University, Japan), Wallace Chang (Chinese University of Hong Kong SAR), Boris Hauray (EHESS/INSERM, France), Sayuri Suwa (Chiba University, Japan), etc., “Harmonisation towards the establishment of Person-centred, Robotics-aided Care System (HarP:RoCS)”, the Toyota Foundation, 2019-2022
With the goal of realising "Society 5.0" and becoming its world pioneer, Japan has been advancing robotics technology in cooperation with industry, government and academia. The country’s rapidly aging society has also served as a driving force for further development of assistive technologies (ATs) and high expectations for a robotics-aided care system. Due to a shortage of care workers and a changing family structure, there is no doubt that these technologies will be more widely used in health and social care domains in the future. Against such a background, this project will consider and explore factors that affect the realisation of a "social implementation" model where humans and care robots can coexist in harmony. The study sites for this comparative research include Ireland, Japan, Hong Kong SAR, China and France. Assoc. Profs. Hasheem Mannan (Health Systems) and Sarah Donnelly (Social Work) are project members.
Porscha Fermanis (PI), "SouthHem: Settler and Indigenous Writing in the British-Controlled Southern Hemisphere, 1780-1870", European Research Council
SouthHem is a five-year research project designed to rethink the nature and scope of nineteenth-century literary culture by giving the southern hemisphere settler colonies a more central role in defining the period 1780-1870. The project involves a detailed comparative analysis of the literary outputs and mediating institutions of British settlers, diasporas, and Indigenous and mixed-race peoples in three transnational zones: “Zone 1” (Oceania): Australia and New Zealand; “Zone 2” (Southern Africa): the Cape Colony and Natal; and “Zone 3” (South-East Asia): Singapore, Penang, and Malacca. The literatures considered in this context include writing in English, translations into English, transcriptions, and writing in languages of origin. The project has three interrelated aims: first, to consider the reciprocal transformations of literary themes, genres, standards, and forms between the southern settler colonies and Britain; second, to consider how literary modernity (and its institutions, associations, and print cultures) developed outside of Europe and the northern hemisphere; and third, to rethink the relationship between settler and Indigenous literary cultures in ways that credit the long histories of aesthetic production among colonized populations. By radically expanding the type, provenance, and sample size of texts typically considered in nineteenth-century studies, the project aims to produce a geographic, temporal, and conceptual realignment of the field. As such, it is hoped that the project will facilitate larger cross-imperial and synthetic studies of the Indigenous, diasporic, and settler literatures of the period. Please see the following websites for further detail: https://www.ucd.ie/southhem/ and (opens in a new window)http://southhem.org
Steffen Rimner, "The first century of Sino-US relations"
This project takes a fresh look at the history of Sino-American cooperation by focusing on the reasons why and to what effect American support became a strategic goal of Chinese foreign relations from the late Qing dynasty to the Cold War. Conceived as both a transnational and international analysis, the book examines partnerships underneath the official surface of public diplomacy to highlight the degree of interdependence between both societies and states,with implications for international affairs and the operations of international regimes in the period and beyond. Archival research for this book was made possible by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Inter-Asia Program. The book is under contract with Harvard University Press.
Yoo Sun Jung, together with Jongwoo Jeong (Texas A&M University) and Jae Seon Jeong (The Debiasing and Lay Informatics Lab, University of Oklahoma), "Voter Rationality, Information Environments, and COVID-19: Evidence from Survey Experiments in South Korea"
An important literature on democratic responsiveness evaluates voter rationality by examining whether voters punish their politicians based on events that are outside the control of their leaders such as natural disasters and external shocks. Do voters evaluate their leaders based on such events because they are irrational? While existing studies have suggested mixed results, Ashworth et al (2018) argue that voter responsiveness to such events does not necessarily determine voter (ir)rationality. Yet, voters learn new information about the incumbent through those events; and it bases rational voters’ evaluations. To test this claim, we take advantage of the recent global COVID-19 pandemic. We identify the citizens with exposure to different information environments about the government performance in response to this exogenous event. Using two survey experiments in South Korea, we show that individuals exposed to good news (positive evaluations on government reaction to the virus) were more likely to assess the incumbent favorably than individuals exposed to either neutral or bad news (n=600). To further understand which information matters, we also implement a conjoint experiment (n=600).
Post-Grad Projects
Niall Traynor (MLitt), "The Formalisation of Street Vendor Livelihoods in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam", Irish Research Council (IRC)
Supervisors: Christine Bonnin and Niamh Moore-Cherry (School of Geography)
In Vietnam's urban centres, street trading remains a highly visible livelihood strategy catering to the provision of goods and services, particularly for low-income populations. In the context of Socialist Vietnam’s rapid economic development and recent promotion to ‘lower middle-income country’, how do such ‘traditional’ activities mesh with urban aspirations for modernity and redevelopment? This thesis seeks to understand the rationale behind the recent formalisation of street food zones in Ho Chi Minh city and the livelihood impacts of regulated spaces on vendors. It finds that the zones are a way of relocating informal vendors to a fixed, observable space yet wrapped-up in the language of poverty alleviation. This has very mixed outcomes for vendors who relocated into designated food zones and potentially detrimental future impacts for migrant and mobile vendors who still work informally on the streets.
Junhyoung Lee (PhD candidate), “Looking Backward to Move Forward: Legitimation and Authoritarian Origin in East Asia”
Supervisor: Alexander Dukalskis (School of Politics and International Relations)
‘How to title to rule’ matters for regime resilience. Authoritarian rulers also have tried to make themselves legitimised rulers. The rulers’ collective efforts for justifying their title to rule (legitimation claims) has been researched in various case study. For the comprehensive understanding for the relationship between legitimation and regime resilience, this thesis seeks to understand how the ruler seizure the power shapes legitimation capacity. Using historical-comparative case study of Vietnam, the Mongolia People’s Republic, and North Korea with advanced qualitative text analysis of text corpus of legitimation claims, this project argues that indigenous political origin regime has advantageous institutional legacies for engineering legitimation claim, including strong sub-party organs, effective military and security session control, and collective social norms among political elites during the violent revolution. In contrast, externally imposed political origin regime lacks these institutional advantages. These two different legitimation claim mechanisms result in regime resilience and failure when the rulers faced a regime crisis. This thesis contributes to the growing literature on the legitimation claims, regime resilience and expands our knowledge to understand divergent post-communist countries’ political changes and promotional behaviour of authoritarian rulers in East Asia.