THURSDAY, 28 DECEMBER - Researchers and students of languages and linguistics at UMS closed 2017 in fine form with a talk given by Dr. Andrew M. Carruthers held recently.
Dr. Carruthers is currently the Max Weber Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
His talk, titled 'The Meaning of "Moreness" for Bugis Migrants', was the first in a line-up of seminars planned under the newly set up Brown Bag Seminar Series for Languages and Linguistics at Centre for the Promotion of Knowledge and Language (PPIB).
Dr. Carruthers delivered a highly informative and engaging talk to audience comprising postgraduate and undergraduate students, academic staff from PPIB and FKSW, as well as the local public.
The talk "examined how Bugis desires for moreness (kelebihan) reflect and shape the semiotic nature of mobility, providing an account of the meaning and value of moreness as it figures in the lives of Bugis people who travel from locations of lessness to realms of achievable mores.
It also analyzed how Bugis communities evaluate and sensuously experience signs of moreness as they travel to new domains home to "new" intensities of "old" qualities".
Dr. Carruthers is a linguistic and sociocultural anthropologist specializing in Malay speaking maritime Southeast Asia. He studies the relation between language, mobilities, and infrastructures as a source of insight into the ways people experience, evaluate, and navigate shifting and potentially hazardous terrains in their everyday lives.
His long-term ethnographic research has centred on the Bugis — a traditionally mobile, seafaring people who consider the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi to be their ancestral home, but have long migrated throughout the sprawling Indonesian archipelago and beyond in search of "moreness".
He has conducted ethnographic and linguistic fieldwork in Indonesia's South Sulawesi, East Kalimantan, North Kalimantan, and Riau Islands Provinces, and in the East Malaysian state of Sabah. Dr. Carruthers holds a B.A. from Cornell University in Anthropology and Southeast Asian Studies, and an M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Yale University in Anthropology.
The Brown Bag Seminar Series is the latest initiative by PPIB’s Research and Innovation office. The seminar features local and international speakers sharing and highlighting their research in the fields of languages and linguistics - two very rich sources of research data on Sabah.
Those interested to give a talk or suggest a speaker are welcome to contact Dr. Mohd. Sohaimi Esa, Deputy Dean for Research & Innovation (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Dr. Jane Wong (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) to give further details.
