Gallery

​Photos in this page are contributed by members of NZASIA as open resources for teaching and research. Please acknowledge NZASIA and provide a link to the source when uses are made of these photos

Photo from Michael Powles, Victoria University of Wellington, Centre for Strategic Studies. In 1993, the then Foreign Minister of China, Qian Qichen, drinking a toast with the then NZ ambassador, Michael Powles, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Aotearoa NZ. 

Photo from Professor Henry Johnson, University of Otago, Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺, Golden Pavilion): temple in Kyoto.

Photos from Dr Rosemary Overell, University of OtagoNikkeijin metalheads drinking between performances at Huck Finn livehouse, 2015

Photos from Dr Rosemary Overell, University of Otago “Live” at Red Cobra livehouse, 2015  In the words of Dr Rosemary Overell: “This project explored the specificities of the nikkeijin extreme metal scene in Nagoya, Japan. Nikkeijinare people of Japanese heritage who grew up in the Japanese diaspora – primarily Brazil and Peru – who return to Japan to work. The scene-members interviewed for this project experienced high levels of discrimination in their working lives (mostly employed by Toyota motor company) and everyday lives due to their lack of ‘Japanese cultural skills’. Instead, they found belonging and fellow feeling in the subcultural spaces of extreme metal.”

Photos from Dr Rosemary Overell, University of Otago, Nikkeijin metalheads drinking between performances at Huck Finn livehouse, 2015

Photos by Dr Malcolm McKinnon, Victoria University of Wellington.Flooding, Mananthavady, August 2018, severest and most destructive since 1924.  The Kabini River, a tributary of the Kaveri, overflowed its banks at Mananthavady and many houses and stores had to be evacuated. The floodwaters pictured here did not recede for several days. Across Kerala as a whole, land slips as well as flooding destroyed agricultural land and houses and over 450 people died.

Photos by Dr Malcolm McKinnon, Victoria University of Wellington. Street scene, Kartikulam, August 2018. Kartikulam is the first town reached in Kerala on the Mysore-Mananthavady Road. The number of businesses in the town has rapidly expanded in the last ten years on account of rising numbers and incomes in the district. As in many parts of Kerala, rural settlement is dispersed and the auto rickshaws and jeeps pictured supplement bus services.  Norfolk Island pines, so familiar in New Zealand, and as in the background of this picture, have been a feature of the South India highland treescape for many decades.

Photos by Dr Malcolm McKinnon, Victoria University of Wellington. House-warming party, Calicut Road, Mananthavady, August 2018. New houses are a prominent form of conspicuous consumption in Kerala and their completion or near-completion is often acknowledged with a house-warming event. It will last at least a day, though with most visitors staying for relatively short times, perhaps 30 minutes to an hour. In this picture, caterers were providing lunch for visitors on open ground under an awning beside the house. The arrangements would remind many New Zealanders of those made for hosting large numbers of visitors on to a marae.   

Photos by Dr Malcolm McKinnon, Victoria University of Wellington Photos taken in northern Kerala, which Malcolm visits regularly and on which he has written short pieces over the years. Street scene on Mysore Road in Mananthavady (December 2019), one of three main centres in northern Kerala's upland Wayanad district, which is well known for eco-tourism and for plantation crops, particularly tea and coffee. Mananthavady is 110 kms from Mysore/Mysuru and 100 kms from Kozhikode (Calicut). It has a diverse population of Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Adivasi (tribal people); part of one of the town's mosques can be seen in the background of this picture. It is also home to many environmental activists.

Photo by André Everett (Professor, retired from the University of Otago). Photos taken in Lukla, Nepal on 9 November 2013, which André used in his teaching on international business.

Photo by André Everett (Professor, retired from the University of Otago). Photos taken in Lukla, Nepal on 9 November 2013, which André used in his teaching on international business.

Photo by André Everett (Professor, retired from the University of Otago). Photos taken in Lukla, Nepal on 9 November 2013, which André used in his teaching on international business.

Photo by André Everett (Professor, retired from the University of Otago). Photos taken in Lukla, Nepal on 9 November 2013, which André used in his teaching on international business.

Photo by André Everett (Professor, retired from the University of Otago). Photos taken in Lukla, Nepal on 9 November 2013, which André used in his teaching on international business.

Photos from Associate Professor Stephen Epstein, Victoria University of Wellington, The punk scenes in Korea; credit to Ken Robinson.

Photos from Associate Professor Stephen Epstein, Victoria University of Wellington, The punk scenes in Korea; credit to Ken Robinson.

Photos from Associate Professor Stephen Epstein, Victoria University of Wellington, The punk scenes in Korea; credit to Ken Robinson.

Photos from Associate Professor Stephen Epstein, Victoria University of Wellington, The punk scenes in Korea; credit to Ken Robinson.

Photos from Associate Professor Stephen Epstein, Victoria University of Wellington, The punk scenes in Korea; credit to Ken Robinson.

Photos from Associate Professor Stephen Epstein, Victoria University of Wellington, The punk scenes in Korea; credit to Ken Robinson.

Photos from Associate Professor Stephen Epstein, Victoria University of Wellington, The punk scenes in Korea; credit to Ken Robinson.

Photos from Associate Professor Stephen Epstein, Victoria University of Wellington, The punk scenes in Korea; credit to Ken Robinson.

Photos from Associate Professor Stephen Epstein, Victoria University of Wellington, The punk scenes in Korea; credit to Ken Robinson.

​The Asian Studies Association of Australia Report

The Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) conducted, in 2001 - 2002, a survey of Asian Studies in Australia's tertiary institutions. It is the first comprehensive survey to have been undertaken by Australian Asianists since the 1989- 1990 Ingelson Report (Asia in Australian Higher Education). The survey findings, and a set of recommendations that flow from them, were presented in Maximising Australia's Asian Knowledge: Repositioning and Renewal of a National Asset.
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The authors of this report, Professor Robin Jeffrey (LaTrobe University) and his colleagues, gave us permission to adapt the questionnaires used by the ASAA team for their survey and have been extremely generous with advice and offers of help. We are very grateful for this help and for permission to make use of the ASAA material.

​The Challenge for New Zealand's Tertiary Education Sector

Knowing Asia is a report that analyses the Asian Studies data collected from nine of New Zealand's tertiary institutions by means of the national survey that NZASIA undertook in 2003 and to which more than 100 of New Zealand's Asia specialists contributed.

The survey, the publication of Knowing Asia, and a national workshop convened in early July 2004 to discuss the report's findings and proposals were generously funded by the Asia New Zealand Foundation (formerly: Asia 2000 Foundation of New Zealand)​. We also received valuable help from Victoria University's Asian Studies Institute and the office of Pro Vice-Chancellor (International).

Executive Summary

The aim of the Knowing Asia report is to identify ways in which tertiary-level Asian Studies programmes can better contribute to New Zealand’s growing political, economic and cultural relationships in the Asia-Pacific region, and to the needs of an increasingly multicultural society.
         
​We drew on the 2003 national survey to document the strengths and weaknesses of research and teaching about Asia in the nine tertiary institutions that employ Asia specialists and teach courses about Asia. We strongly affirm the responsibility of the tertiary education sector to expand and deepen New Zealanders’ knowledge of their Asian neighbours. And we contend that tertiary-level studies of Asia, as they exist at present, require substantial strengthening and development if they are to contribute to a ‘national capability’ in relation to this country’s Asian relationships.
         
The 2003 survey counted more than 140 Asia specialists in nine tertiary institutions. These specialists collectively represent a very rich body of Asia knowledge and skills. Close examination of the data, however, reveals imbalances, thinness and gaps that militate against the effective deployment of New Zealand’s Asia researchers and educators. Some of the survey’s key findings are as follows:

• New Zealand has only a handful of Asia scholars who have research expertise in fields directly relevant to government and private sector connections with Asian partners – namely, the fields of economics, marketing, business management, law and communication studies (including information technology).
• In the five years since 1997, the number of Asia specialists employed by New Zealand tertiary institutions has actually declined
• Asia expertise is very heavily concentrated in the fields of Chinese and Japanese studies
• Scholars who specialise in South and Southeast Asian studies are relatively few in number, and they are thinly and randomly scattered across six campuses (three campuses have none)
• Just one academic in New Zealand has research expertise in Central and West Asian Studies
• The majority of specialists are based in Language and Literature departments and spend at least part of their time teaching Chinese or Japanese language to undergraduates.
• The imbalances and weaknesses in the area of staffing impinge directly, of course, on the teaching programmes offered by each institution.
• We found hardly any Asia-related courses in the degree programmes offered by Schools or Faculties of Commerce, Business Management and Law, or in teacher education certificate, diploma and degree programmes
• No New Zealand tertiary institution now offers a degree programme in any of the languages of South and Southeast Asia
• Although Chinese and Japanese language programmes grew strongly in the 1990s, there was no parallel growth of courses about China and Japan in the non-language disciplines; the paucity of non-language courses about Japan is particularly striking
• Teaching about Asia in the non-language disciplines is haphazard, and largely confined to a small range of disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• The undergraduate Asia Languages and Studies programmes are producing very few graduates who continue their studies of Asia at postgraduate level.

         
To begin to address and solve these problems, Knowing Asia proposes a range of initiatives and concrete actions, twenty-five in all. Some actions require new funding commitments. Others will entail little more than a better coordination of existing resources, more efficient divisions of labour and, by means of the increasingly versatile information technologies now available to us, the strengthening and expansion of ‘Asia knowledge’ links, clusters and networks.

Our most important proposal is that, under the auspices of the NZASIA Society, we set up a tertiary education action group that will function as a national policy, planning and coordinating body for Asian Studies research and teaching on all tertiary campuses. The other 24 proposals are premised on the existence of such a body, and on it working effectively. One early task for the group will be to liaise with the Asia 2000 Foundation on follow-up to its Seriously Asia project, including the Knowledge Working Group and NZ/Asia policy network proposals

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Links to Other Affiliate Societies

Japanese Studies Aotearoa New Zealand: www.facebook.com/JapaneseStudiesAotearoaNZ
South Asian Studies Association of Australia: www.southasianstudies.org.au 
NZ contemporary China Research Center: www.wgtn.ac.nz/chinaresearchcentre
New Zealand India Research Institute: www.wgtn.ac.nz/hppi/centres/india-research