Soc-In Pride | Celebrating Global Achievements on Presenting Academic Work at the International Forum
Faculty members from the School of Social Innovation, Mae Fah Luang University, participated in The 9th Biennial International Conference of the Japanese Studies Association of Southeast Asia (JSA–ASEAN), held on 11–12 December 2025 in Vientiane, Lao PDR. The conference brought together scholars from across Southeast Asia and Japan to exchange research and advance interdisciplinary dialogue on Japanese and regional studies.
The conference was organized under the overarching theme “Gender Perspectives for Southeast Asia and Japan: Pasts and Futures,” highlighting how gender analysis remains central to understanding social transformation, governance, culture, and power relations across historical and contemporary contexts in the region.
In this forum, faculty members from the School of Social Innovation presented their work in the panel entitled “Intersecting Pathways of Care, Culture, and Power: Gender, Migration, and Governance in Japan and Beyond.” The panel examined how gendered relations shape post-disaster recovery, local governance, cultural production, and political imagination, drawing empirical insights from both Japan and Southeast Asia.
Presentations by MFU faculty included:
1) Dr. Jaruwan Hatapasu, Women’s Roles in Post-Disaster Cultural Recovery: Empirical Insights from Thailand with Comparative Reflections from Japan, which discussed women’s agency in sustaining cultural practices and social cohesion following disasters.
2) Dr. Pradit Chinudomsub, The Role of Local Governments in Post-Disaster Recovery: Lessons from Japan for Thailand, focusing on institutional capacity, decentralization, and policy learning in disaster governance.
3) Asst. Prof. Pathompong Manohan, The Political Economy of Cult Power in the Japanese Manga: 20th Century Boys, offering a critical reading of popular culture, ideology, and power in modern Japan.
This international engagement reflects the School of Social Innovation’s commitment to advancing critical, policy-relevant, and interdisciplinary research on sustainable development, gender, governance, and sociocultural change. It also strengthens MFU’s academic presence within regional and global networks, particularly in relation to Japan–Southeast Asia studies and broader debates on development and social innovation in the Mekong region.
