Networking for the Region and Beyond – Role of the Southeast Asian Geography Association (SEAGA)

Abstract

Networking among geographers in the Southeast Asian region is a challenge because of language and other barriers such as the costs of travel as well as keeping up communications and information flows. This networking effort however, is crucial to research and scholarship on issues that are relevant to the region. Many of these concern sustainable development which is a contested concept as well as governance and policies. The Southeast Asian Geography Association (SEAGA) has in the last eighteen years provided a platform through its biennial conferences, for geographers in the region as well as elsewhere to gather and exchange research findings and project outcomes. Through these conferences, SEAGA has also developed partnerships with networks that include scholars in Australia and the Pacific as well as geography educators both in Singapore and the region. Such partnerships are aimed at supporting the cause of growing geographical research, scholarship as well as education in the Southeast Asian region.

Keywords:

• Southeast Asian region
• networking
• sustainability
• challenges facing geography
• geography education
• geography associations