The Presidents' Prize of the
Asian Studies Association of Australia, Inc.

Web site established: 16 Apr 1997
Last updated: 17 June 2005

ASAA Presidents' Prize and DK Award

Since 2004, the Presidents' Prize has been augmented by the DK Award, presented by the global book distributor, DK Agencies of New Delhi, to highlight its dealings with Australian academics and academic libraries since 1968. The DK Award provides the winner of the Presidents' Prize with the choice of books to the value of $500 (Australian dollars) from the DK website (http://www.dkagencies.com/). (The price of books is listed on the website; the Award does not include postage).

The Presidents' Prize includes priority consideration for publication in one of the ASAA publications series.

Each year Australian universities are invited to nominate one dissertation awarded the Ph.D. degree in the previous year. Final selection is by a committee of prominent scholars appointed biennially by the Council of the ASAA. The criteria for the award are "excellence in scholarship, relevance to Asia, and appropriateness for publication. "

Nominations by universities for the outstanding dissertation for which the Ph.D. degree was conferred in 2004 should reach the President of the ASAA by Friday, 29 July 2005. The nomination should be accompanied by a copy of the thesis, a citation explaining its merits, and anonymous copies of all examiners' reports.

Regulations

Purpose:

The purpose of the ASAA Presidents' Awards are to encourage and reward excellence in scholarship on Asia at the doctoral level, to publicise the best Australian scholarship at this new level, and to encourage its publication in Australia.

The Committee:

1. The ASAA Presidents' Award Committee shall be comprised as follows:
• The President or immediate past President of the ASAA, as chair.
• One other member of the ASAA Council (normally the Publications Officer).
• One representative each (normally the respective chairs) of the editorial committees of the ASAA Southeast Asia Publications Series, the ASAA East Asia Series, the ASAA South Asia Series, and the ASAA Women in Asia Series.
• Such additional members (not more than three) as appointed by the Council of the ASAA.

2. Each member of the Committee holds office for two years, with the possibility of no more than two consecutive terms.

3. The Committee's proceedings are confidential.

4. Responsibility for the selection of the award winning thesis lies solely with the Award Committee, and no discussion about the decisions can be entered into.

5. The Award Committee may in confidence refer any thesis or theses to an expert assessor.

1. The Award is restricted to Ph.D thesis accepted for the award of Ph.D at Australian tertiary institutions on topics wholly concerned with Asia or the relations between Australia and Asia.

2. All disciplines within the humanities and social sciences are included within the scope of the Award.

3. The Award in each year will be made for theses from PhD degrees that are conferred during the previous year.

1. Each year Vice-Chancellors will be requested to circulate relevant departments of their university inviting nominations for the Award.

2. Any department of an Australian tertiary institution may nominate for the Award a thesis submitted in that year.

3. Each university is restricted to one nomination in a year.

4. In making the nomination, the university will provide a copy of the thesis and a document setting out the reasons for the nomination, which may include anonymous examiners' reports if allowed by the regulations of the university in question.

5. Nominations, like all other papers before the Award Committee, are confidential to it.

1. The ASAA Presidents' Award consists of a prize of $1000, and a certificate. The winning thesis will also be considered for priority publication in one of the Publication Series sponsored by the ASAA.

2. The sole criteria for the Award are excellence in scholarship, relevance to Asia and appropriateness for publication.

3. The Committee reserves the right not to grant the Award in a given year, or to accumulate nominations for two years for a single Award.

4. The Award will be made public, when possible at the ASAA Conference.

Any changes in these regulations shall be made by the Council of the ASAA.

Past Winners [1997 - 2004]

2004 - Dr. Kaosar Afsana (Edith Cowan University) for her thesis "Power, Knowledge and Childbirth Practices: An Ethnographic Exploration in Bangladesh"

AND

2004 - Dr. Kama Maclean (La Trobe University) for her thesis "Power and Pilgrimage: The Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, 1765-1954."

Presidents' Prize Citation for 2004 Award:

The Presidents' Prize for the best thesis on an Asian topic for which the degree was awarded by an Australian university in 2003 has gone jointly to:

a. Dr Kaosar Afsana, whose doctorate was awarded by Edith Cowan University in Perth
b. Dr Kama Maclean, who completed her PhD at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

This is the first time the prize has been awarded to theses dealing with South Asia.

The judges' citations are as follows:

Citation

Kaosar Asfana, "Power, Knowledge and Childbirth Practices: An Ethnographic Exploration in Bangladesh"

This thesis is a fascinating, vibrant, and extraordinarily powerful multi-disciplinary analysis of indigenous childbirth practices in Bangladesh, and particularly "why and in what ways rural, poor women in Bangladesh adhere to indigenous birth practices and resist cosmopolitan obstetric care. It is based upon both extensive research into the theoretical and empirical literature, and especially upon a long period of rich and perceptive fieldwork. Ms Afsana's moving account of childbirth practices in Bangladesh demonstrates a deep and engaged empathy for the women with whom she interacted, who "possess immense knowledge of mind/body unification and embodied birth experiences that lead them to engage actively in birth events". The results of her work have deep health policy implications for Bangladeshi society, including "degovernmentalising the State, democratising health policy and organising support at international levels."

The outstanding features of this study are the extraordinary training and expertise of the author for this very difficult and potentially contentious topic, the meticulous attention to a wide range of conditions that might affect perceptions and behaviour, the seriousness, sensitivity and commitment shown in the fieldwork, and the analytical and methodological rigour of the argument that leads to clear and substantive conclusions on the way ahead. Her quietly provocative findings are of great value for those who desire to deal with a society in transition in a manner that balances and encompasses the strengths of both the traditional and "modern" childbirth knowledge and practice. This is a thesis of very high achievement indeed.

Citation

Kama Kellie Maclean, "Power and Pilgrimage: The Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, 1765-1954"

This thesis is a beautifully organised, highly original and insightful analysis of the long-term development of a centrally important ritual in modern India, the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad. The thesis a skilfully crafted piece of research that breaks important new ground and does so in an impeccably scholarly way. Ms Maclean writes in an exemplary style: witty, elegant, wryly humorous, ironic and thoroughly engaging and commanding, notwithstanding the complexity of her subject and the difficulty of her sources. Her work is the product of extensive and painstaking research in English and Indian sources that is theoretically informed without being demonstrative, and which is notable for its unusual and highly fertile breadth and range.

The outstanding features of Ms Maclean's thesis are the way in which it restores agency to religion through a sophisticated analysis of the interactions between the colonial and indigenous power-holders and pilgrims and several other interested groups and persons, its findings on the mechanics and dynamics of political and religious power, and the exceedingly thorough research done. As a whole, the thesis represents a major contribution to the understanding of the nature of pilgrimage and popular Hinduism, of power and its unexpected consequences, and of the general history of north India.

2003 - Dr. Linda Rae Bennett (University of Queensland) for her thesis "Dialectics of Desire and Danger: maidenhood, sexuality and modernity in Mataram, eastern Indonesia."
Presidents' Prize Citation for 2003 Award:

The ASAA Presidents' Prize was established by past-presidents of the Association to honour and encourage emerging scholars of Asia at Australian universities. The prize is awarded to the author of thesis judged the most of those dealing with Asia for which a doctoral degree was conferred in the previous year.

The winner for 2003 (degree conferred in 2002) is Linda Bennett. Here thesis is entitled "Dialectics of Desire and Danger: maidenhood, sexuality and modernity in Mataram, eastern Indonesia." It was submitted to the Tropical Health Program at the University of Queensland. In 2004, Dr Bennett holds a postdoctoral fellowship in the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

The thesis impressed the judges for the depth, thoroughness and sensitivity of its research and for Dr Bennett's ability both to tell individual stories engagingly and to relate them to larger questions of interpretation and theory. The thesis explores the lives of young, unmarried women in the city of Mataram on the Indonesian island of Lombok. It focuses on the conflict between the expectations that custom and state ideology bring to bear on the sexual behaviour of young women and their own wishes and inclinations in an urban, modernizing environment.

As well as being an outstanding example of patient ethnographic research, the thesis has implications for health and policy studies. Dr Bennett argues that health policy and services "fail to address adequately the specific reproductive health needs of single women" in growing cities like Mataram.

A book drawn from Dr Bennett's thesis will be published in 2004 in the ASAA's Women in Asia Publications Series.

2002 - Dr. Beatrice Trefalt (Murdoch University) for her thesis "Unexpected Returns: stragglers of the Imperial Army and memories of the Second World War in Japan, 1950-1975."

2001 - Dr. Michael Laffan (University of Sydney) for his thesis "The Umma Below the Winds: Mecca, Cairo, Reformist Islam and a Conceptualization of Indonesia."

2000 - Dr. Koichi Iwabuchi (University of Western Sydney) for his thesis "Returning to Asia: Japan in the Cultural Dynamics of Globalization, Localization and Asianization."

1999 - Dr Michael Barr (University of Queensland) for his thesis "Lee Kuan Yew: The Beliefs behind the Man."

1998 - Dr Seung-Ho Kwon (University of New South Wales) for his thesis "Control and Conflict: the Historical Development of Labour Management within the Hyundai Business Group, 1946-1995."

1997 - Dr Mark Hudson (Australian National University), for his thesis entitled "Ruins of Identity: Ethnogenesis on the Japanese Island, 400 BC to AC 1400."