Academic & Teaching staff

Professor Michael J. G. Parnwell

Professor of South East Asian Development

About Professor Michael J. G. Parnwell

My undergraduate training was in Geography at the University of Hull, where I also read for a PhD. My Doctoral research examined the economic and social impact of return migration (people returning to their home villages after a period in the city, typically Bangkok). My research project was one of the first to examine empirically the phenomenon of 'return migration' or 'rural-urban circulation': hitherto migration studies had tended to view migration as a predominantly linear and long-term or permanent process. During my Doctoral research I lived for almost a year in four villages in North-East Thailand. I feel the experience of living at the grassroots level was invaluable in giving me a perspective on development that I have carried around with me throughout my research and teaching career.

Research Interests

I have an eclectic range of research interests which fit broadly under the umbrella of the development process in South-East Asia . I have undertaken research on such topics as rural-urban circulation, rural industrialisation, spatial planning, tourism, extended metropolitanisation, urbanisation, deforestation and environmental degradation. I have worked in several South-East Asian countries, including Thailand, Malaysia ( Sarawak ), Indonesia ( Sulawesi ) and Vietnam, as well as China . Most of my research involves field-based investigation. I have recently completed an EU-funded research programme which explored sustainable livelihoods and food security issues, with a particular focus on 'coping mechanisms', in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam . This project involved collaboration with researchers from the UK, Denmark and Italy, as well as counterpart teams in the three South East Asian countries. In June/July 2009 I spent a fortnight in Shaanxi Province, People's Republic of China, as part of a NERC/ESRC/DfID-funded International Research and Training Network on "Farmer Innovation Systems in the Loess Plateau of China". I am working, together with my colleague Dr Martin Seeger, on an ESRC-funded research project on development monks in the northeastern region of Thailand, entitled "The Buddhistic Underpinnings of Neo-Localism in North East Thailand". Another current project is a collaborative (with colleagues in Switzerland and the UK) comparative exploration of management issues, challenges and concerns in World Heritage Sites in South East Asia in relation to spiralling (domestic as well as international) tourism demand. Our research has looked at sites in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia so far, to which the Lao PRD and possibly the Philippines will shortly be added.

Recent Activities

I became Professor of South East Asian Development on 1 June 2009.

 

In Spring 2009 I undertook a site reconnaissance in Hoi An and Phong Nha National Park, Vietnam, as part of a collaborative research project on tourism and the management of World Heritage Sites in Southeast Asia. In Spring 2010 I extended this research to Hoi An and My Son, and in 2011 hope to include the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve of Cham Islands to this research. I also taught a group of Scandinavian undergraduate students in Hoi An under the KulturStudier programme, based in Oslo.

Key Publications and Activities

Books and Monographs

  • (co-editor with Michael Hitchcock and Victor T. King) `Heritage Tourism in Southeast Asia', Hawai'i: University of Hawai'i Press and Copenhagen: NIAS Press (2010)
  • (co-editor with Michael Hitchcock and Victor T. King) `Tourism in Southeast Asia: Challenges and New Directions', Hawai'i: University of Hawai'i Press and Copenhagen: NIAS Press (2009)
  • (co-editor with Raymond Bryant) 'Environmental Change in South-East Asia: People, Politics and Sustainable Development', London: Routledge (Global Environmental Change Series) (1996).
  • (editor) 'Uneven Development in Thailand', Aldershot: Avebury (1996).
  • 'Population Movements and the Third World', London: Routledge, (1993). Published in Japanese in 1996 as: Daisan Sekai To Jinko Ido, Tokyo: Kokonshoin (ISBN 4-7722-1847-5).
  • (co-editor with Michael Hitchcock and Victor T. King) 'Tourism in South-East Asia', London: Routledge (1992).
  • (co-editor with Victor T. King) 'Margins and Minorities: The Peripheral Areas and Peoples of Malaysia' Hull: Hull Press (1990).

Journal Articles and Papers

  • (with Martin Seeger, EAS), 2008, "The Relocalization of Buddhism in Thailand", Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 15, 78-176.
  • 2007, "Neo-Localism and Renascent Social Capital in North-East Thailand", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 25, 6, 990-1014.
  • 2005, "Crowding Out and Clawing Back: Local Institutions and Sustainable Livelihoods in North-East Thailand", International Development Planning Review, 27, 2, 143-68.
  • 2006, "Eco-Localism and the Shaping of Sustainable Social and Natural Environments in North-East Thailand", Land Degradation and Development, 17, 2, 183-195.
  • 2005, "Transnational Migration and Development: A Conceptual Overview", Asian and Pacific Migration Journal (Special Issue on Contemporary Migrations in Asia and Europe : Exploring Transnationalism, Multiple Linkages and Development), 14, 1-2, 11-34.
  • 2005, "The Power to Change: Rebuilding Sustainable Livelihoods in North-East Thailand ", The Journal of Transdisciplinary Environmental Studies, 4, 1 (www.journal-tes.dk).
  • 2003, 'Consulting the Poor in Thailand: Enlightenment or Delusion?', Progress in Development Studie, Vol 3(2), pp 99-112.
  • (with Bin Wu and Philip Bradley), 2002, 'Farmer Self-Organizing Innovation in the Marginal Areas of China: A Study of Farmer Communication Networks in Zhidan, Loess Plateau', Journal of Rural Co-operation, 30, 1, pp. 43-63.
  • 2001, 'Coping With Crisis in Thailand: Migration Reversal, Survivalist Strategies and Development Implications', in: Pietro Masina (ed) Rethinking Development in East Asia: From the Miracle Mythology to the Economic Crisis, London: Curzon and Copenhagen: NIAS.
  • 2001, 'Sinews of Interconnectivity: Tourism and Environment in the Greater Mekong Subregion', in: P. Teo, T.C. Chang and H.K. Chong (eds) Interconnected Worlds: Tourism in Southeast Asia, New York: Elsevier.
  • (with Jonathan Rigg, eds), 2001, Special Issue on 'Global Processes, Local Responses: Resistance and Compliance in Southeast Asia', Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 22, 3, 205-306, including (with Jonathan Rigg), 'Global Dissatisfactions: Globalisation, Resistance and Compliance in Southeast Asia', pp. 205-11.
  • 1999, 'Between Theory and Reality: The Area Specialist and the Study of Development', in Anders Narman and David Simon (eds) Development as Theory and Practice, Harmondsworth, Longman, pp. 76-94.
  • (with Sarah Turner), 1998, 'Sustaining the Unsustainable? City and Society in Indonesia', Third World Planning Review, May 1998, 20, 2, pp.147-63.
  • 1998, 'Tourism, Globalisation and Critical Security in Mainland South-East Asia', special issue of the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 19, 2, 212-31.
  • (with Luxmon Wongsuphasawat), 1997, 'Between the Global and the Local: Extended Metropolitanization and Industrial Location Decision-Making in Thailand', Third World Planning Review 19, 2, pp.119-38 (May, 1997).

Consultancies

  • Evaluation (as a Social Expert) for the European Commission of the World Bank's administration of the €55 million ASEM Trust Fund (2001/2)
  • Chair, Developing Areas Research Group, Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers.
  • International Advisory Panel, International Development Planning Review.
  • Evaluation as a Social Sector Expert, for the European Commission, of the European Commission Country Strategy Papers for Vietnam and Cambodia (2005).

Funded Research Projects

  • British Academy, (jointly with Victor T. King, EAS, Michael Hitchcock (Chichester University) and Janet Cochrane (Leeds Metropolitan University), "The Management of World Heritage Sites in South East Asia" (£30,000)
  • Economic and Social Research Council, July 2005-February 2006 (jointly with Dr Martin Seeger ) "The Buddhistic Underpinnings of Neo-Localism in North-East Thailand " (£8,600)
  • EU Asia-Link research training programme on Project Cycle Management and Participatory Methodologies (€220,000), involving participants from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Italy, Denmark and the UK (co-ordinated from Roskilde University in Denmark )
  • Grassroots Informed Approach to Sustainable Livelihoods in South-East Asia, EU 5th Framework Programme Research Project. Part of a small team of other European scholars with field work conducted in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam (Grant: €380,000)

Teaching

My teaching is mainly concerned with various aspects of the development process in South East Asia, including issues of environmental degradation and sustainable development, and linked to my current research interest in alternative approaches to development in the region. I also coordinate, and deliver the majority of the teaching on, research methods training in the Department of East Asian Studies. 

Undergraduate

  • EAST 1706 Introduction to Development in South East Asia
  • EAST 3704 Development and Environment in South East Asia
  • EAST 3708 Alternative Visions of Development in South East Asia

Postgraduate

  • EAST 5093M and EAST5094M Principles and Practice of Research 1 & 2
  • EAST 5035M Development Issues in South East Asia, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Leeds
  • EAST 5033M Sustainable Development in South-East Asia (Online MA)

PhD Supervision

I have supervised a total of 27 PhD and MPhil students, and also examined a similar number of PhD theses. Current supervision includes:

 

  • Syahrin Said (joint supervision with Prof Victor T. King, EAS) (PhD) (Malaysia) "The Middle Class in Modern Malaysian Society"
  • Janice Nga (joint supervision with Prof Victor T. King, EAS) (PhD) ( Malaysia ) "The Political Functioning of Youth Organisations in Malaysia"