Pierre Jun Kai Pow

I am a cultural historian and musicologist specialising in gender, media and sustainability in 20th-century Southeast Asia and Western Europe. My current research interests include (i) the intersections of music, gender and technology in Southeast Asian popular culture, (ii) sustainability and musical distribution of the Angklung across Southeast Asia, the Netherlands and Suriname, and (iiii) death and sexuality in Malay cultural productions. More information is avail at www.junpow.wordpress.com

I am a cultural historian and musicologist from Singapore. My research interests lie in the gender, media and sustainability of music in twentieth-century Malaysia, Indonesia and of their diaspora. I am the co-editor of Singapore Soundscape (NLB 2014) and Queer Singapore (HKUP 2012 ) and my articles are published in South East Asia Research, Transgender Studies Quarterly, and Trans Asia Photography.

After a Music degree from the University of Birmingham, I obtained my MA (Distinction) and PhD from King's College London. I was subsequently awarded four research fellowships from the Leiden University, National Library Board, National Heritage Board, and Uppsala University.

I am also a cultural producer and my Chinese-English short stories translations are published in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Literary Shanghai and Chinese Literature and Thought Today.

Intangible Cultural Heritage is facing a crisis in its global sustainability. Tremendous amount of concerted effort is needed to often maintain the currency and activities of many traditional music and dance practices. Debates over authenticities and restitution have been vibrant but the actual ambassadorship of heritage practice belongs to the musicians and dancers themselves, who most of the case are of the older generation and/or distant custodian.

Based on environmental historical research, I study the cultural stewardship of Indonesian angklung musicians in the Netherlands. My approach is ecological and experiential in the sense that the history of patrimony is mediated through visual and physical means. I made use of cartography, gerontography and photography to argue that intangible cultural heritage preservation necessitates a sustainable impetus beyond the public sphere.

List of Publications