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This year, we received forty nominations from Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, the UK, and the US. The dissertations reflect a wonderfully diverse range of critical issues that are grounded in, converge across, and transcend, Asia. Our jury consisting of Professors Fran Martin (chair), Yiu-fai Chow, Sharmani Gabriel, and Madhuja Mukherjee took on the tremendous task of reviewing all submissions. They noted that the overall quality of the submissions was exceptionally high, making the selection process both challenging and genuinely exciting.
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After much deliberation and discussion, the jury selected Sirithorn Siriwan as the winner of the 2025 prize, for the outstanding dissertation titled, “Between Lives: Livingness and Remnants of Rice Ontology in Northern Thailand”. Below is a citation from the panel.
Sirithorn Siriwan’s dissertation presents an ambitious, creative and deeply engaging transdisciplinary study of rice cultures and rituals in northern Thailand. The strengths of this impressive work lie in four dimensions. First is the work’s adventurous methodology. It masterfully synthesises creative and interdisciplinary methods into a meticulously constructed framework combining the anthropology of religion, theater and performance, and gender and sexuality studies with a lyrical, inspired form of writing and thesis organization. This approach not only retrieves but revitalizes the animistic rice culture of northern Thailand, offering a novel and highly effective lens through which to explore the resilience of these traditions. Second, the panel very much appreciated the preciousness of the object of research: rice culture and rituals threatened with disappearance. These phenomena are highly locally specific and difficult to research, embedded as they are in subaltern agrarian communities. This cultural knowledge has a poignant frailty that lends the study significant added value. Third, the work has strong potential for Inter-Asia transferability. Although the research is based on an intensely local series of sites in northern Thailand, the focus on rice––a basic foodstuff and agricultural product woven through with rich cultural meanings in many parts of Asia––means it’s easy to imagine the study’s Inter-Asia resonance. Fourth, the work is politically engaged in the strong Inter-Asia tradition, addressing critical issues including the politics of food production, cultural erasure, the impacts of imperial histories and transnational capitalism, gender subjugation, and the oppressive weight of state-sanctioned religious frameworks on ancient rice rituals. The work hums, whispers, and narrates urgent questions on cultural and spiritual injustice and multi-species co-existence; Siriwan’s beautifully committed style of writing evokes the presence of farmers and researchers, of activists and artists, of bodies and spirits, of fun and resistance. The concept of “livingness” is particularly compelling, capturing the dynamism and adaptability of rice culture as it navigates the tensions between tradition and modernity, survival and continuity in an era of rapid globalization. In addition, the panel appreciated the clarity and passion of the author’s project, which shone through every page of the writing; and her highly skilled engagement with visual cultural texts. This is an exceptional dissertation, and it is our honour to name it the winner of the 2025 IACS Dissertation Prize.
— The Jury
Congratulations, Sirithorn Siriwan, on winning the 2025 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Dissertation Prize. We also extend our sincere thanks to all the participants for entering the competition this year. We wish you all the best in your further careers.
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Sirithorn Siriwan is currently a postdoctoral fellow at NYU Shanghai and received her PhD in Asian Literature, Religion, and Culture from Cornell University.