Editorial from the director
I wish you all a happy new year 2008! This year will see the end of two transversal research programmes
that IRASEC launched with the financial support of the French Minisitry of Foreign and European Affairs.
The first programme, lead by the French Center of Human Sciences (CHS) in New Delhi, is pertaining to "the recombining of modern Islam and its economical dynamics in Asia, from Caucasus to China". Three publications will come out this year, including an Atlas of Muslim minorities in Eastern and Southern Asia, coordinated by Michel Gilquin, and a study on the Cham people in Cambodia and Vietnam, by Agnès de Féo. A research on Malaysia by Juliette Van Vassenhove, PhD candidates at IEP Paris (Institute for political studies), will be published as well.
The second research programme relates to ‘regional construction and national resistances in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS)’, lead by our Institute in collaboration with the CHS in New Delhi and the French Center for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC) in Hong Kong. The aim of this programme is to understand and monitor major changes in the Indochinese peninsula since the implementation of the GMS plan. Five publications will be released this year, covering a wide scope of issues. In other respects, we are preparing a seminar in Chiang Rai with Mae Fah Luang University on Thai and French scientific research in the GMS, which will give us the opportunity to report on the final outputs of this programme.
In 2008, our Institute engages its eighth year of activity that should inaugurates a new stage of development symbolized by its recent integration to the French Center for the National Scientific Research (CNRS) as a Research Unit. Next Automn, Irasec will welcome researchers from CNRS. We are also preparing the opening in Jakarta of our first branch. Moreover, starting this year, Irasec will co-edit the review Moussons, Social Sciences Research on Southeast Asia, in collaboration with IRSEA (Research institute on Southeast Asia) located in Marseille, France.
Guy Faure Ph.D
Director
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