Dr. Ahmad Rizky Umar on Constructing Asia: Geography, Identity, and the Struggle for Global Order

The East Asia Study Group, in cooperation with the PAIS Seminar Series, is proud to bring you this talk based on Dr. Umar's upcoming book which presents a new history of the idea of Asia in world politics by showing the dynamic global contestations that enables the emergence of multiple ideas of Asia. Over time, various countries, individuals, and social groups articulate their interpretations of Asia to strengthen or challenge global orders. These ideas often clashed in the struggle to establish or challenge global orders. Combining theoretical innovation and detailed historical analysis, this book unpacks the epistemic, normative, and political elements that underpin five ideas of Asia in world politics, as well as the mobilization of these ideas in the contestation for global orders, particularly in the last two centuries. This book, specifically, examines five ideas of Asia that have emerged in world politics since the 19th century: (1) Western conceptions of Asia, (2) Pan-Asianism, (3) postcolonial ideas, (4) Asian regionalism, and (5) emerging trans-regional conceptions of Asia. Across six chapters, this book shows that ideas of Asia have been mobilised by different political agents to justify their visions of global order. In a time of increasing US-China geopolitical competition and hypes about the rise of Asia, the book offers a critical understanding of ‘Asia’ and the role it plays in changing global order.

Dr Ahmad Rizky M. Umar is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University. He completed his PhD in Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland in 2022 and taught at the University of Queensland and Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, before moving to Wales in 2024. Umar is an expert in Asian regionalism, Indonesia's foreign policy, and Indo-Pacific security. He has published articles in International Affairs, Alternatives, International Journal, Development in Practice, Asian Politics and Policy, Global South Review, and Studia Islamika. His MSCA postdoctoral fellowship unpacks the politics of transregionalism in world politics after the Cold War.