Geography, Geology and the Environment

I am a Malaysian of Chinese descent who left home (Kuala Lumpur) to indulge a passion: to read for a degree in English Literature. This was followed by an MA (by research and thesis) on African American Literature, which then opened the floodgates of my interests in cross cultural, world literature. My PhD (at Durham University) was done in the Geography Department, positioning my thesis on South Asian Literature at the crossroads of literary, cultural and geographical studies. I am currently an interdisciplinary Geographer, who also teaches in Sociology, continuing to work in the interstices of the Social Sciences and the Humanities.

My research areas include South Asia, postcolonialism, gender studies, cross-cultural studies, and literary studies; encompassing the issues of power, narrative, identity construction, class chasms, social and cultural change, and interdisciplinarity.

A significant proportion of my current research focuses on the representation, positioning, and social and spatial entrapment of women. My results, derived from detailed textual analysis, interviews and discussions with authors, publishers and readers, cyberspace fieldwork, and increasingly, electronic ethnography, have identified many significant ongoing changes in the creation of South Asian women’s images and identities (in a South Asia undergoing rapid economic and social changes), as well as cultural changes within diasporic South Asian communities.

I am a member of the Research Institute for Law Politics and Justice and am also affiliated to the Research Institute for the Humanities.

See my extended publication list

Year 1

• GEG-10008 Geography in a Changing World
• GEG 10006 Geographical Skills II

Year 2

• GEG-20015 Space and Society
• GEG- 20010 Practical Human Geography
• GEG 20009 Geographical Research Training - Singapore & Malaysia Fieldcourse

Year 3

• GEG-30015 Postcolonialism in South Asia (Geography: Level 3) - Module Leader
• Analysing Culture (Media Communications and Culture : Level 2)