Global Indo-Pacific: Connecting Histories and Futures, 2025-27
This is a new research node, based on the collaboration of the Max Weber Foundation Institutes in Delhi, London, Paris, Tokyo and Washington, the Institute for Asian and African Studies at the Humboldt University Berlin and the Asia Research Institute (ARI) of the National University of Singapore (NUS). The research node is funded by the The Max Weber Foundation and hosted by ARI. Commencing in July 2025, this node is expected to run until the end of 2027.
About
The Indo-Pacific, embracing large parts of Asia and Oceania and spanning from the East coast of Africa to the West coast of the American continent, has been referred to both as a maritime ecological system and a strategic geopolitical construct. The region comprises a multiplicity of colonial and postcolonial histories and geographies, which together increasingly challenge Western-centric mappings of international order. The research node will examine the Indo-Pacific’s complex historical trajectories and regional dynamics and their implications for pressing global ecological, demographic and geopolitical issues. Further, we seek to go beyond the most common framings of the region as a geo-strategic concept and unravel the many ways that the Indo-Pacific comes to be constructed and circulates. This invites broad and diverse cultural, geographical, historical, scientific and social perspectives.
The research node consists of three modules, on the following topics:
- History, Heritage and Civilization (ARI, GHI London, GHI Paris, IAAW; Convenors: Christina von Hodenberg & Tim Winter)
- Knowledge, Networks, and Institutions (ARI, DIJ, IAAW, MWF Delhi; Convenors: James D Sidaway & Franz Waldenberger)
- Earth, Energy and Water (GHI Washington and ARI; Convenors: Sarah Beringer & Stefan Hubner)
Module 1: History, Heritage and Civilization
Institutes involved: ARI, GHI London, GHI Paris, IAAW
Convenors: Christina von Hodenberg & Tim Winter
In today’s multipolar world, history, religion and culture are shaping international affairs in complex and consequential ways. The Indo-Pacific is the epicentre for such developments, a region where ideas about history and heritage are being transformed by geopolitics, frontier digital technologies and the climate crisis. Dramatic changes are occurring in the ways cultural heritage is being preserved and constructed by archaeologists and museum practitioners and presented to public audiences through new technologies. As China, India and others mobilize their civilizational legacies to exert their will on the future, this module addresses the past as a vector of South-South and North-South regional competition and collaboration spanning both terrestrial and oceanic regions. By working outwards from the vantage point of Southeast Asia, and using ARI’s research infrastructure of Arabia-Asia and India-China Studies together with the GHI London’s Colonial and Global History and India Research Programmes, we will research the intellectual and institutional drivers that have shaped the key influential discourses of history and heritage – empire, civilization, Buddhism, Islam, Indian Ocean World, Silk Road etc. – that have analytically connected East Africa to Pacific Asia.
Fellowships
The research node offers short-term, mobility fellowships to promote closer academic collaboration between the Indo-Pacific region and the regions where the partner institutes of the Max Weber Stiftung are situated. The fellowships support innovative, independent research projects with links to any one of the three module themes. They are granted for research stays from one to two months. We especially encourage stays that involve joint activities with researchers at the host institutions. Fellows are expected to contribute to one of the module blogs, which will be set up on the MWS blog platform (https://mws.hypotheses.org) or write a research report based on the research conducted during their stay.
In the year 2026, two current research fellows and one former researcher from the German Historical Institute London received the fellowship to spend a month each at ARI. One researcher from ARI will be spending a month at the GHIL in the summer of 2026.
GHIL Fellows at ARI (April-May 2026)
- Dr Felix Luettge
- Dr Thomas Kaal
- Dr Mallika Leuzinger (former fellow, at present research fellow at ZMO Berlin)
ARI Fellow at the GHIL (June 2026)