WiSSEAS at Five

Side Event, Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference (AAS 2026)

14 March 2026, 7:30 PM, Vancouver Convention Center, Vancouver, Canada

On the evening of 14 March 2026, members of the Women in Southeast Asian Social Sciences (WiSEASS) network gathered at the Vancouver Convention Center for an informal anniversary celebration held alongside the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference. The get-together, titled "WiSEASS at Five," marked half a decade since the network's founding and brought together convenors past and present, longstanding members, and other interested attendees from the broader AAS community. 

The event opened with remarks from Meredith Weiss, Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany and founding Director of the SUNY/CUNY Southeast Asia Consortium, who co-founded WiSEASS in 2021. Weiss spoke about the circumstances and motivations that gave rise to the network, offering a retrospective on what had prompted its establishment and what had sustained it over the years. 

Sol Iglesias, Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines Diliman, and a WiSEASS convenor since 2024, followed with an update on recent network activities. These included the 2024 online seminar on women as public intellectuals in Southeast Asian social sciences and the "Women on the Cusp" roundtable held at the SEASREP conference in Bangkok—the latter also attended by Tyrell Haberkorn, who spoke briefly about her experience with and through the network. Merlyna Lim, Professor and Canada Research Professor in Digital Media and Global Network Society at Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication, was welcomed as a new convenor and also shared brief remarks. 

The formal programme gave way to open discussion, with audience members reflecting candidly on the challenges that women continue to face in the academy. The informal format of the evening was characteristic of WiSEASS gatherings, encouraging frank exchange across career stages and institutional affiliations. The event also exemplified what the network was founded to provide: community, solidarity, and space for women scholars working on and in Southeast Asia.

Photos from the event (by Sol Iglesias):