My main research interest focuses on how ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia are engaged in multiple forms of network practices engaging different types of capital (social, political, and economic) in the process. This research traces the contours of these networks by mapping linkages between supra- and sub-national transactions in order to show whether these alternative (business) networks undercut prevailing spatial organisations such as those organised by the nation-state. An important part of this research is to focus on the ethnic Chinese diaspora in especially Southeast Asia and whether ethnic Chinese business strategies are based on ethnic affiliated practices such as guanxi or xinyong or whether they are conditioned by changing global economic practices thus introducing more truncated and ad hoc based business network. In terms of size of businesses in Southeast Asia my main focus is on ethnic Chinese owned SMEs. As they are less engaged in international business transactions they are more likely to act as suppliers or sub-contractors for MNCs in a given domestic market. The focus point here is how these businesses relate to the national industrial and societal setup knowing that ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs constitute a minority group in all the Southeast Asian countries except Singapore. The ultimate interest in this connection is to research the outer limits of ethnic affiliation in a business cum societal context.

‘Interdependency Versus Notions of Decoupling in a Globalising World: Assessing the Impact of Global Economics and Industrial Developments and Inter-Ethnic relations in Penang, Malaysia’, in Copenhagen Discussion Papers series. No. 35, November. 2010.

'Frozen Identities. Inter-Ethnic Relations and Economic Development in Penang, Malaysia'. Published in Copenhagen Discussion Papers Series No. 30, August. 2009.

'Navigating between Disaggregating Nation States and Entrenching Processes of Globalisation: Reconceptualising the Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia', in Journal of Contemporary China. Vol. 18, No. 58. January. 2009.

'Ethnic Chinese Entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia: Measuring the Economic Impact of Mainland China', in Verner Worm (ed.) China - Business Opportunities in a Globalising Economy. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press, pp. 155-70. 2008.

 In the Shadow of Mainland China: Changing Ethnic Chinese Business Practices in Southeast Asia?. Co-edited with Ng Beoy Kui, School of Humanities and Social Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. special issue of Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies. No. 25, 2007

‘Re-Conceptualising Notions of Chinese-ness in a Southeast Asian Context. From Diasporic Networking to Grounded Cosmopolitanism’. In East Asia: An International Quarterly. Vol. 24, No. 2. June 2007

‘Doing Business the Chinese Way? On Manadonese Chinese Entrepreneurship in North Sulawesi’, The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies. No. 24, 72-104. 2006

‘Positioning Strategies of Southeast Asian Chinese Entrepreneurs’. Co-authored with Vivienne Wee and Tiong Chong Wong. Published in Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 36, No. 3. 2006

‘Islam and Processes of Minorisation among Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia: Oscillating between Faith and Political Economic Expediency’, in Asian Ethnicity, Vol. 6, No. 2. June pp. 71-87.2005

‘Tightening the Unitary State. The Inner Workings of Indonesian Regional Autonomy’, in Indonesian Quarterly, Vol. 32. No. 4. December, pp. 384-404.2004

‘On Factionalism and Secessionism in North Sulawesi Province, Indonesia’, in Asian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 12. No. 1. June, pp. 65-94.2004

‘Indonesian Conflicts, A Regional Perspective’, in Timo Kivimäki, Michael Jacobsen and Pius Suratman Kartasasmita (eds), Democracy, Decentralisation, Identity and Conflict in Indonesia. Helsingki: CTS-Conflict Transformation Service, pp. 31-48.2002

‘On the Question of Contemporary Identity in Minahasa, North Sulawesi Province, Indonesia’, in Asian Anthropology. Vol. 1, pp. 31-58.2002

‘Appropriating the Global within the Local. On Identity Formation among the Minahasa in North Sulawesi, Indonesia’, in Catarina Kinnvall and Kristina J?nsson (eds): Globalisation and Democratic Development in Asian. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 230-46.2002

Forthcoming

‘If Only Cultural Chameleons Could Fly Too: A Critical Discussion of the Concept of Cultural Intelligence’, submitted to the International Journal on Cross-Cultural Management. Written together with Maribel Blasco and Liv Engholm Feldt.

‘Managing Industrial Disaggregation Within the Ethnic Chinese SME Business Community in Penang, Malaysia’. Book project based on fieldwork spanning the period 2005 to 2010. Work in progress.

‘Assessing Project Indonesia: Endogenous Aspirations and Exogenous Forces’. Co-authored chapter with Vivienne for the edited volume: ‘Political Fragmentation in Southeast Asia: Alternative Nations in the Making’, edited by Vivienne Wee. To be published by Routledge.

‘Towards a Disaggregation of the Indonesian State and Nation? On Ethnic Revival and Provincial Politics in Outer Indonesia’. Book project! Submitted to Routledge for publication.