2025–26 Sabbatical · Research & lectures
A sabbatical that took the argument of Small Steps on the road — to the places where the argument has actually been tried.
From August 2025 through June 2026, this sabbatical took the Small Steps argument to the places where it has actually been tried — Barbados, Taiwan and beyond — and submitted it to the scholars best placed to challenge it. For the abstracts and the full venue list, see Talks.
Aug 13 → Aug 20, 2025
The trip opened in Southern Africa — fieldwork in Botswana and the Harare Conference in Zimbabwe — before returning to Singapore for the autumn.
Investigating Botswana's remarkable human development outcomes.
Harare Conference.
Nov 19, 2025
Represented SMU at the 2025 ASEAN+3 Rectors' Conference — a plenary on regional agricultural development, drawn from four ASEAN+3 cases.
ASEAN+3 Rectors' Conference: Securing ASEAN+3's Food Future, Can Tho University. Presented "Four Cases in ASEAN+3: What Do They Teach Us About Regional Agricultural Development?"
Late Dec 2025 → mid Jan 2026
Three weeks of fieldwork in Barbados — directly feeding the Small Steps chapter on inclusive tourism as a sustained national strategy.
Three weeks of fieldwork on Barbados's inclusive tourism development — for the Small Steps Barbados chapter.
Jan 20 → Feb 8, 2026
Germany, Switzerland, Italy — three institutional talks bracketing research visits in Stuttgart and the Mosel valley, with a visit to Umbria.
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.
Research visit to the University of Hohenheim.
Jointly sponsored by Anna Ahlers (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science) and Sabrina Habich-Sobiegalla (Freie Universität Berlin), held at Humboldt University. Later met with Anna at Max Planck.
Consulted Dr. Renee Tappel.
Talk for the University of Fribourg, held in Zürich.
Visit with my cousins.
Feb 9 → Mar 15, 2026
East-coast invited lectures, a long west-coast arc, and the AAS annual meeting in Vancouver. Seven universities in less than a month.
Day trip from Lancaster to visit my friend Mike Casper and his partner Dorie.
Stopped on the way back to Lancaster to revisit the town where I lived in 1978.
Hosted by Nick Smith of Barnard College, held at Columbia University.
Oklahoma State University.
University of Oregon — presentation and workshop. Met with John Abbe (aka Slow), a friend and a self-described Nonviolent anarconsensual process artist geek.
Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference. Presented "Sufficiency for All — Exploring Asian Examples of Small-Scale, Low-Tech, Pro-Poor Initiatives."
Mar 15 → May 21, 2026
A two-month fellowship at the Australian National University in Canberra, with side trips for a Hanoi workshop, a wedding in Tulsa, and East Coast Australia presentations.
Home base briefly between legs.
Visiting Fellowship, Australian Centre on China in the World, Australian National University, hosted by Graeme Smith. Presented at the CIW China Seminar Series on March 26.
Publication Workshop for Governing China, Australian Centre on China in the World. Presented 'Power Across Levels: China's Shifting Administrative Hierarchy and Its Developmental Trajectory.'
For my brother's wedding!
University of Melbourne, Monash University, and La Trobe University.
University of Sydney.
Australia China Friendship Society (ACT). Public talk: "The Allure of Modernization: Guizhou's Shift from Inclusive Development to Indebted Growth."
May 21 → Jun 13, 2026
A few days home in Singapore, then three weeks in Taiwan combining talks at four institutions with travel around the island.
Talks at NCCU, Academia Sinica, National Taiwan University and National Chung Hsing University (Taichung), with a west-coast-down, east-coast-up arc around the island.
Read the full Taiwan retrospective →This section will hold the retrospective — what I learned in Barbados, the questions raised in Tübingen and at Brown, the conversations in San Francisco and Singapore. Coming soon.
A gallery from the road. To come, once I gather the images from phone and laptop.