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About Duncan McCargo

Duncan McCargo writes about Southeast Asia, especially Thailand's politics. Other interests include contemporary fiction, Victorian literature, photography and the Titanic disaster. Duncan is director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and a professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen. He co-founded the Nordic Asia Podcast and is a host for the Literature and Southeast Asian Studies Channels on NBN. Contact: duncan@nias.ku.dk

Duncan McCargo is an eclectic, internationalist political scientist, and literature buff: his day job is directing the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, at the University of Copenhagen.

Duncan's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Duncan:

Southeast Asian Studies May 2, 2022

Infiltrating Society

The Thai Military’s Internal Security Affairs

Puangthong Pawakapan

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why is the Thai military so deeply embedded in socio-economic development projects, longer after the end of the Cold War? How come serving generals continue to exercise considerable authority over a …
Nordic Asia Podcast April 29, 2022

The Future of Japanese Studies

A Conversation with Aike P. Rots

Aike P. Rots

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Does the rise of China mean that studying Japan is inexorably declining? Many students become interested in Japan because of popular culture, such manga and video games: is this a …
Nordic Asia Podcast March 21, 2022

Understanding Timor-Leste's 2022 Presidential Elections

Amber Woortman in conversation with Duncan McCargo

Amber Woortman

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Timor-Leste is choosing a president. What is the significance of the 2022 presidential elections in Timor-Leste? Has Asia’s youngest and newest country become a prisoner of its short but turbulent …
Southeast Asian Studies March 1, 2022

Chasing Freedom

The Philippines Long Journey to Democratic Ambivalence

ADELE. WEBB

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
In conversation with Duncan McCargo about her new book Chasing Freedom: The Philippines Long Journey to Democratic Ambivalence (Sussex Academic Press, 2022), Adele Webb offers a spirited defence of what …
Nordic Asia Podcast February 4, 2022

The Politics of Protest in Myanmar

Van Tran

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why has Myanmar experienced so many massive street protests recent years? How can we go about studying these sorts of mass demonstrations? What kinds of roles do bystanders perform in …
Southeast Asian Studies January 3, 2022

Power and Knowledge in Southeast Asia

State and Scholars in Indonesia and the Philippines

Rommel Argamosa Curaming

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why did leading historians in both Indonesia and the Philippines become involved in projects to write national histories during the 1970s? How far were these projects essentially political undertakings to …
Nordic Asia Podcast December 27, 2021

East Asian Cold War History with a Maritime Twist

Kuan-Jen Chen

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
When did the Cold War in East Asia really begin? According to ADI-NIAS researcher Kuan-Jen Chen, the answer is 1945 – if we view the Cold War through a maritime …
Southeast Asian Studies November 15, 2021

Unwritten Rule

State-Making through Land Reform in Cambodia

Alice Beban

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why do so many Cambodian small landholders live in fear? How did the issuance of official land titles contribute to growing indebtedness in rural areas? Why did the government send thousands …
Nordic Asia Podcast October 15, 2021

Beyond a Shadow

Southeast Asia Transcending US-China Rivalries

Joseph Liow Chin Yong

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why do Southeast Asia specialists get tired of explaining that the politics of the region cannot be reduced to a zero-sum game of Chinese-US great power rivalries? How do relatively …
Southeast Asian Studies October 4, 2021

Rebel Politics

A Political Sociology of Armed Struggle in Myanmar's Borderlands

David Brenner

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
How can we best understand ethnic armed organizations on the borderlands of Myanmar? Why did the Karen embrace the military-initiated peace process in 2012, shortly after the Kachin had rejected …
Literature August 27, 2021

The Voice Over

Poems and Essays

Maria Stepanova

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Is it just a coincidence that three books by the major Russian writer Maria Stepanova have appeared in English in 2021? Why does Maria Stepanova deploy such a rich variety of voices …
Nordic Asia Podcast August 6, 2021

Labor Pioneers

Economy, Labor, and Migration in Filipino-Danish Relations, 1950-2015

Nina Trige Andersen

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
What happened to the Filipinas who migrated to Denmark to staff iconic new international hotels in the 1960s and 1970s? Why did the Philippine government encourage so many talented people …
Nordic Asia Podcast July 30, 2021

Teaching Cross-Cultural Communication

Understanding Asia in Pandemic Times

Annelise Ly

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Teaching cross-cultural communication is challenging at the best of times, but how can Nordic students learn to engage with Asian cultures when they are forced to study entirely online? Award-winning …
Art July 20, 2021

The Decisive Network

Magnum Photos and the Postwar Image Market

Nadya Bair

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
The legendary Magnum photo agency has long been associated with heroic lone wolf male photographers such as Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, roaming the world in search of the “decisive …
Southeast Asian Studies July 15, 2021

Contested Territory

Ðien Biên Phu and the Making of Northwest Vietnam

Christian C. Lentz

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why is Vietnam's modern history so closely associated with a place that lies only just within the country's borders? What was at stake in the contest for the mountainous Black …
Literary Studies July 15, 2021

Dweller in Shadows

A Life of Ivor Gurney

Kate Kennedy

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
The First World War poet and composer Ivor Gurney (1890–1937) spent the last fifteen years of his life confined in a Kent mental hospital before dying prematurely of tuberculosis. How good was Gurney's war poetry …
Nordic Asia Podcast July 12, 2021

Perceptions of Climate Change from North India

An Ethnographic Account

Aase J. Kvanneid

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Aase Kvaneid’s new book explores local perceptions of climate change through ethnographic encounters with the men and women who live at the front line of climate change in the lower …
Nordic Asia Podcast July 9, 2021

Nine-Tenths of the Law

Enduring Dispossession in Indonesia

Christian Lund

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why are land rights so bitterly contested in Indonesia, even after the end of Suharto’s New Order in 1998? What methods have grassroots movements used to re-possess – or to …
Nordic Asia Podcast June 28, 2021

Remembering President Noynoy Aquino

A Discussion with Sheila Coronel

Sheila Coronel

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Former Philippine President Noynoy Aquino (in office from 2010 to 2016) recently passed away at the age of just 61. How should we assess the legacy of this “accidental” president …
Nordic Asia Podcast June 21, 2021

In China’s Shadow: China and Southeast Asia

A Discussion with Sebastian Strangio and Murray Hiebert

Sebastian Strangio and Murray Hiebert

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Does Southeast Asia face a stark choice between aligning with China or the United States? Can we understand domestic developments in the region as driven by wider geopolitics? Can the …
Nordic Asia Podcast June 18, 2021

Ecological Civilization: Chinese Dream or Global Strategy?

A Discussion with Mette Halskov Hansen

Mette Halskov Hansen

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
How seriously should we take the Chinese government’s discourse about ‘ecological civilization’? Mette Halskov Hansen argues that whatever the shortcomings of this rather grandiose notion, it offers an invaluable means …
Southeast Asian Studies June 15, 2021

Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age

The Yellow Shirts in Thailand

Aim Sinpeng

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why did hundreds of thousands of Thai people rise up in opposition to elected governments in 2006, 2008 and 2013-14? What were the ideological underpinnings of the yellow shirt movement …
Nordic Asia Podcast June 14, 2021

Sensible Politics

Visualizing International Relations

William A. Callahan

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
How can we theorize international relations by looking at how nose sizes are depicted in Asian art and literature? Why are Vietnamese immigration officials furious about the maps that appear …
Nordic Asia Podcast June 11, 2021

Photography and Human Rights in Thailand

A Discussion with Karin Zackari

Karin Zackari

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
What do startling photographic images of state violence from events such as the 6 October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University tell us about the nature of human rights in Thailand …