Ash is a PhD candidate from Malaysian-Borneo whose research interest lies at the intersection of queer and postcolonial theory, with a focus on their interventions in questions of time, space, and identity. Their main research context is Malaysia, where they write about queerness and indigeneity in the Malaysian millieu.
Ash completed their BSc in Sociology at the London School of Economics in2020. Their undergraduate dissertation was on queer migration from Malaysia to the UK, and the spatio-temporal (re)configurations of identity such movements might produce. It received the Hobhouse memorial prize for best sociological dissertation and was subsequently published in the queer interdisciplinary journal 'Whatever'.
They then completed an MPhil in Geographical Research at the University of Cambridge in 2021, with a strong focus on social and postcolonial geographies. Their dissertation was on queer and indigenous temporalities in Malaysian-Borneo, where they were interested in understanding the synergies between queer and indigenous approaches to time and modernity, and how these concepts might play out in a postcolonial context like Malaysian-Borneo.
Outside of the PhD, Ash has a strong interest in writing and producing music and pursued a side career as an independent alternative pop singer-songwriter and producer, having recently released their debut studio album. As such, their current research project looks at the relationship between popular music and the queer postcolony, specifically Malaysia. It aims to understand the ways queerness is configured within a postcolonial milieu using popular music as a site through which anxieties over national affiliation and sexual/gender identity take place.
