Carmina Yu Untalan

I joined the IIAS as a fellow in October 2022 to work on my project on the relevance of Okinawa and Mindanao to American hegemony in the Pacific. It was my first time to be affiliated with a European academic institution, having acquired my graduate degrees from the Philippines and Japan. Naturally, the idea of being far away from home and a sense of intimidation toward something “unfamiliar” overwhelmed me. Yet, the anxiety gradually faded as I spent more time with IIAS fellows and staff. I realised that Rapenburg 59 was as close to being at home as possible. 

IIAS was, in many ways, both anachronistic and ahead of its time. Anachronistic in the sense that the activities we had, especially the “Inspiration Sessions”, where fellows gathered to do all sorts of creative things such as reading chapters from novels and watching movies, brought us back to an ideal(ised) sense of academia as a space where conviviality, curiosity, and seemingly ordinary moments of being together was considered essential to any academic pursuit. In a world where academia is becoming more “marketised”, some would perhaps see this as a waste of time: instead of spending hours with colleagues chatting about a documentary we saw, why not just face the computer screen to write manuscripts for publication? Yet for me and other fellows, IIAS was a haven for the imagination, a respite amidst being constantly haunted by the pessimism with the neo-liberalisation of academia. 

IIAS is ahead of its time because it seems to anticipate what the academe would (hopefully) look like in the future. It organises conference festivals and other activities that bring together scholars, artists, and practitioners in a space where multidisciplinary and diversity are genuinely valued. I am particularly amazed by the work the IIAS staff has put into publishing the Newsletter. During my fellowship, I developed a habit of reading an article while taking a break in the common room. The articles are interesting and rigorous but readable, especially for non-specialists like me! As a student of international relations, I would not have imagined learning about rivers, textiles, and urban planning in such a random but satisfying manner. The vast array of topics and perspectives found in the printed newsletter further inspired me to go beyond disciplinary boundaries and to take time to breathe and unplug from the Internet of Things. 

Toward the end, I realized that being at IIAS is not just about my research. It was also about co-exploring alternative ways of navigating academia, developing friendships and connections that would outlast the fellowship period, and, surprisingly, learning more about Asia outside Asia.