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What is AAS-in-Asia 2027 all about?

AAS-in-Asia 2027 is the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies held outside North America. Hosted by ÌÇÐÄÔ­´´'s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in Bandar Sunway, Malaysia, the conference brings together hundreds of scholars, researchers, educators and students from across Asia and the world.

The conference provides a premier platform for interdisciplinary dialogue, cross-regional exchange and the advancement of knowledge on Asia's diverse societies, cultures, histories and futures. Sessions span humanities, social sciences, area studies and interdisciplinary fields.

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At AAS-in-Asia 2027 in Kuala Lumpur, we invite scholars to engage with Asia as a region of shifting currents, recast terrains, and influential global futures. Amid a changed geopolitical climate, Asia is not simply responding to global transformations; its societies, economies, knowledge systems, and cultural traditions are actively shaping them. Economic realignments, new educational and technological networks, cultural movements, and changing political relationships have positioned the region as advantageous within a multipolar world. Renewed attention to the Global South and decolonial approaches has encouraged scholars to reconsider Asia through its own histories, concepts, connections, and intellectual traditions rather than primarily through frameworks developed elsewhere.

Currents in Asia: Shifting Tides, Recasting Terrains asks how these transformations might enable us to rethink both Asia's past and its possible futures. "Currents" evoke movement: of peoples, ideas, commodities, technologies, languages, beliefs, artistic practices, and political imaginaries. They also remind us that contemporary transformations emerge from much older patterns of circulation and encounter. How might inherited forms of knowledge, governance, social organization, environmental stewardship, and cultural expression provide resources for negotiating contemporary challenges? How are communities recasting inherited terrains rather than simply abandoning them in pursuit of modernity? And, increasingly, how is the world being shaped by Asia? 

Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia provide a particularly compelling setting for these conversations. Located at the meeting point of regions historically described as mainland and maritime Southeast Asia, Malaysia has long been embedded within networks connecting the Indian Ocean, the Straits of Melaka, the South China Sea, and wider Asian and global worlds. The Straits of Melaka have for centuries facilitated exchanges between South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, and beyond. Malaysia itself reflects these histories of movement and encounter through Malay and wider Nusantara traditions, Sinophone and South Asian communities, the Indigenous peoples of Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo, and communities whose histories connect the country with Europe and other parts of the world. These overlapping histories make Malaysia an especially productive location from which to question rigid regional distinctions and to examine the multiple currents that characterize Asia.

Malaysia also offers an important vantage point for examining Asia's contemporary trajectories. As a significant node in global technology, manufacturing, education, and cultural networks, while navigating strategic relationships through ASEAN and a longstanding commitment to regional engagement, Malaysia illustrates how Asian societies negotiate global pressures while developing their own pathways. At ÌÇÐÄÔ­´´, we look forward to welcoming scholars from across Asia and beyond to celebrate the historical currents that have connected the region while forging new directions in, from, and for Asia. 

Conference Themes

Asia Shaping the World: Geopolitics, Economies, and New Global Currents
This theme examines emerging geopolitical configurations, South–South relations, ASEAN and regional cooperation, changing global supply chains, migration, diplomacy, and Asia's growing role in defining global debates and institutions.

Heritage as Future: Recasting Knowledge, Memory, and Identity
This theme explores Indigenous and traditional knowledge, cultural memory, religion, language, heritage practices, archives, decolonisation, and the ways communities reinterpret inherited traditions in response to contemporary change.

Governance from the Ground Up: Local Structures, Communities, and Political Futures
This theme examines customary governance, Indigenous political systems, village and community structures, decentralisation, civil society, local democracy, informal institutions, and alternative approaches to authority and collective decision-making.

Digital Asia: Technologies, AI, and Regional Futures
This theme focuses on artificial intelligence, digital economies, social media, platform cultures, technological sovereignty, digital humanities, education, surveillance, data governance, semiconductor and technology ecosystems, and distinctive Asian approaches to technological development.

Planetary Health and Asian Ecologies
This theme invites work on climate change, biodiversity, food and water systems, environmental knowledge, Indigenous ecological practices, public health, disaster resilience, migration, sustainability, and the relationships between human, animal, and environmental wellbeing.

Future Cities, Mobilities, and Urban Cultures
This theme addresses megacities and secondary cities, smart cities, architecture, transport and mobility, housing, migration, public space, heritage urbanism, creative districts, inequality, infrastructure, and the tensions between rapid development and culturally grounded urban futures.

Gender, Bodies, and Emerging Social Worlds
This theme welcomes research on emerging gender constructs, family and kinship, labour, sexuality, masculinities and femininities, youth cultures, ageing, migration, representation, marginality, and movements for social transformation.

Creative Industries, Media, and New Imaginaries
Papers may explore film, performing arts, literature, design, gaming, fashion, digital content, popular culture, cultural entrepreneurship, creative economies, intellectual property, transnational fandoms, and the circulation of Asian cultural forms within and beyond the region.

Ideas and Dialogue From Across Asia

A World-Class Campus in the Heart of Malaysia

ÌÇÐÄÔ­´´ is one of Malaysia's leading private universities, situated in Bandar Sunway, Selangor. The Jeffrey Cheah Performing Arts Centre and dedicated conference facilities provide a premier setting for AAS-in-Asia 2027.

The campus is easily accessible from Kuala Lumpur International Airport and features excellent accommodation, dining, and transport connections throughout the Klang Valley.

Getting Here