Wednesday, November 19, 2025
12:00–1:30 PM HST
Online Event

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Nearly a decade after the South China Sea Arbitration ruling, the region continues to be a focal point of overlapping maritime claims, resource competition, and strategic maneuvering among regional and global powers. On Wednesday, November 19 at 12:00 PM HST, this webinar brings together three distinguished scholars to explore the lived, political, and economic dimensions of the South China Sea from national and transnational perspectives. Dr. Edyta Roszko discusses The Role of Fisheries in Vietnam’s South China Sea Strategy, drawing from her ERC-funded projects on fishing communities and maritime governance. Dr. Shaun Lin analyzes the region’s geopolitical and legal complexities within the context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and prospects for joint development. Dr. Patricio N. Abinales examines evolving commercial ties between the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and the Chinese market, and how these relationships may be reshaped by growing maritime tensions. Together, the speakers offer nuanced insights into how states, communities, and economies navigate the contested yet interconnected maritime landscape of the South China Sea.

Edyta Roszko is a Research Professor and social anthropologist at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway. She is leading the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant project Transoceanic Fishers: Multiple Mobilities in and out of the South China Sea (TransOcean) that historicizes fishing communities in relation to and beyond the nation-state, security concerns and territorially bounded fisheries. Edyta’s newly awarded ERC Consolidator Grant project Global Hydroconnectivities beyond Ocean, Seas and Rivers combines anthropology, archaeology and geohydrology and contributes to the wider discussion on global Indigenous history and its relevance in the era of climate changes. Edyta is the author of Fishers, Monks and Cadres: Navigating State, Religion and the South China Sea in Central Vietnam co-published by NIAS and the University of Hawai’i Press.

Shaun Lin is Lecturer at NUS College of the National University of Singapore. Shaun’s research interests are in political geography (particularly the geopolitics of Southeast Asia and China), border studies (land and maritime), environmental politics, and geography pedagogy. Shaun serves as Social Media Editor for Space and Polity, and Book Review Co-Editor for the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography. He is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Geography in Higher Education.

Patricio N. Abinales retired from the Department of Asian Studies, University of Hawai’i-Manoa, in 2025. He was a visiting research fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, from March to August 2025, where he was working on a book project on the University of the Philippines and the Marcos Dictatorship.

Moderator: Petrice Flowers is the Professor and Director for the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa

This event is co-sponsored by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Office of Global Engagement, and the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs.