About Nick Cheesman

Proud NBN host and podcasting advocate. Also an associate professor in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University, and co-convenor there of the Interpretation, Method, Critique network, as well as director of the Myanmar Research Centre. Open links on the right for more.
Host, Interpretive Political and Social Science; sometimes contributor, Southeast Asian Studies
Nick's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Nick:

Samantha Majic, "Lights, Camera, Feminism?: Celebrities and Anti-Trafficking Politics" (U California Press, 2023)

March 10, 2024

Lights, Camera, Feminism?

Samantha Majic
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Recent years have brought an upsurge in celebrity activism. Not a day goes by without an actor or musician taking to a stage, a podium or the internet…

Gerard McCarthy, "Outsourcing the Polity: Non-State Welfare, Inequality, and Resistance in Myanmar" (Cornell UP, 2023)

November 1, 2023

Outsourcing the Polity

Gerard McCarthy
Hosted by Nick Cheesman
Listen:

In late 2015 Daw Aung San Suu Kyi led Myanmar’s National League for Democracy to a smashing general election victory. In one of her first public appea…

Kevin Funk, "Rooted Globalism: Arab–Latin American Business Elites and the Politics of Global Imaginaries" (Indiana UP, 2022)

September 20, 2023

Rooted Globalism

Kevin Funk
Hosted by Nick Cheesman
Listen:

Triumphant capitalism has in our time engendered a new global class that lives and works in a borderless world, beyond the reach of national politics …

Shaul Shenhav, "Analyzing Social Narratives" (Routledge, 2015)

July 31, 2023

Analyzing Social Narratives

Shaul Shenhav
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Analyzing Social Narratives (Routledge, 2015) is one of the concise and informative volumes in the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods, whose tit…

Patrick Jory, "A History of Manners and Civility in Thailand" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

June 2, 2023

A History of Manners and Civility in Thailand

Patrick Jory
Hosted by Nick Cheesman
Listen:

If you’ve visited Thailand even for a short time you’ve probably been given, or have come across, some basic instructions on dos and don’ts — where to…

Farah Godrej, "Freedom Inside?: Yoga and Meditation in the Carceral State" (Oxford UP, 2022)

May 18, 2023

Freedom Inside?

Farah Godrej
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Are meditation and yoga offered to prisoners merely to have them acquiesce to being incarcerated and degraded? Or can they help prisoners interrogate …

Ke Li, "Marriage Unbound: State Law, Power, and Inequality in Contemporary China" (Stanford UP, 2022)

March 13, 2023

Marriage Unbound

Ke Li
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

In recent years the authors of a slew of books and articles have debated whether China is moving toward or away from the rule of law. Against this end…

Magnus Fiskesjö, "Stories from an Ancient Land: Perspectives on Wa History and Culture" (Berghahn Books, 2021)

January 1, 2023

Stories from an Ancient Land

Magnus Fiskesjö
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

In 2013, the Journal of Burma Studies published an article titled “An Introduction to Wa Studies.” It seems that even within the last decade the Wa, a…

Mona El-Ghobashy, "Bread and Freedom: Egypt's Revolutionary Situation" (Stanford UP, 2021)

October 18, 2022

Bread and Freedom

Mona El-Ghobashy
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

A decade has passed since the Arab Spring of 2011, during which an uprising in Egypt ended three decades of rule by Hosni Mubarak without realizing a …

Ken MacLean, "Crimes in Archival Form: Human Rights, Fact Production, and Myanmar" (U California Press, 2022)

September 1, 2022

Crimes in Archival Form

Ken MacLean
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Though human rights monitors talk of fact-finding missions and reports, human rights facts are, like all social phenomena, not in fact found but made …

Anastasia Shesterinina, "Mobilizing in Uncertainty: Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia" (Cornell UP, 2021)

August 9, 2022

Mobilizing in Uncertainty

Anastasia Shesterinina
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Anastasia Shesterinina begins Mobilizing in Uncertainty: Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia (Cornell University Press, 2021) with an account of…

Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith, "Rethinking Comparison: Innovative Methods for Qualitative Political Inquiry" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

April 22, 2022

Rethinking Comparison

Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

With Rethinking Comparison: Innovative Methods for Qualitative Political Inquiry (Cambridge University Press, 2021) Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush…

Craig J. Reynolds, "Power, Protection and Magic in Thailand: The Cosmos of a Southern Policeman" (ANU Press, 2019)

February 15, 2022

Power, Protection and Magic in Thailand

Craig J. Reynolds
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

In this episode of New Books in Southeast Asian Studies we travel with Craig J. Reynolds to the mid-south of Thailand in the first half of the twentie…

Diana S. Kim, "Empires of Vice: The Rise of Opium Prohibition Across Southeast Asia" (Princeton UP, 2020)

December 30, 2021

Empires of Vice

Diana S. Kim
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

In Empires of Vice: The Rise of Opium Prohibition across Southeast Asia (Princeton University Press, 2020) Diana Kim situates the regulation of vice a…

Thongchai Winichakul, "Moments of Silence: The Unforgetting of the October 6, 1976, Massacre in Bangkok" (U Hawaii Press, 2020)

October 15, 2021

Moments of Silence

Thongchai Winichakul
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

The massacre of student protestors at Thammasat University on 6 October 1976 is one of the most infamous incidents in modern Thai political history. I…

Cecelia Lynch, "Interpreting International Politics" (Routledge, 2014)

October 14, 2021

Interpreting International Politics

Cecelia Lynch
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Interpreting International Politics (Routledge, 2014) is a short and lively account of how international relations was founded and developed as an int…

Natasha Behl, "Gendered Citizenship: Understanding Gendered Violence in Democratic India" (Oxford UP, 2019)

July 23, 2021

Gendered Citizenship

Natasha Behl
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Why do we find pervasive gender-based discrimination, exclusion and violence in India when the Indian constitution builds an inclusive democracy commi…

Teri L. Caraway and Michele Ford, "Labor and Politics in Indonesia" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

April 15, 2021

Labor and Politics in Indonesia

Teri L. Caraway and Michele Ford
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

How did Indonesia’s labour movement go from being small and divided at the demise of the New Order regime in 1998 to play lead parts in politics some …

Lee Ann Fujii, "Interviewing in Social Science Research: A Relational Approach" (Routledge, 2018)

April 7, 2021

Interviewing in Social Science Research

Lee Ann Fujii
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

In this very special episode of New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science we feature Lee Ann Fujii’s Interviewing in Social Science Resea…

Duncan McCargo, "Fighting for Virtue: Justice and Politics in Thailand" (Cornell UP, 2020)

March 1, 2021

Fighting for Virtue

Duncan McCargo
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Anyone who has taken any interest in the politics of Thailand at all in the last two decades could not help but have noticed the part that the country…

Lisa Wedeen, "Authoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

January 11, 2021

Authoritarian Apprehensions

Lisa Wedeen
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

How has the Syrian regime been able to bear the brunt of the challenges raised against it? And, what can we learn about the seductions of authoritaria…

Melissa Crouch, "The Constitution of Myanmar: A Contextual Analysis" (Hart, 2019)

October 20, 2020

The Constitution of Myanmar

Melissa Crouch
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

The tail end of the twentieth century was a good time for constitutional lawyers. Leapfrogging around the globe, they offered advice on how to amend, …

Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely, "Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Approach" (Oxford UP, 2018)

October 15, 2020

Interpretive Social Science

Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

In Interpretive Social Science: An Anti-Naturalist Approach (Oxford University Press, 2018), Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely make a case for why interpre…

Roman David and Ian Holliday, "Liberalism and Democracy in Myanmar" (Oxford UP, 2018)

August 17, 2020

Liberalism and Democracy in Myanmar

Roman David and Ian Holliday
Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Democracy is a popular topic among scholars of politics in Southeast Asia. Liberalism is not. Or at least it hadn’t been up until the last few years, …