MALAYMATRIMONEY: Q1 Updates

As I elucidated in my previous post, Q1 was mostly about settling in as a resident (and taxpayer) of Norway. It is also about settling into UiB — joining the research community; getting to know other academics; and getting them to know me.

Here’s what I’ve been up to since coming here:

March

14-17 March: Attended the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Conference in Seattle (WA), USA.

April

Submitted a revised article for a special issue edited by the CanCode Project on judicial standardization in the registration of cross-border marriages in Malaysian Shari’ah courts.

May

I presented my paper, “Enemies from Within: Love Magic, Sorcery, and Intrafemale Violence among Co-Wives in Malay Polygyny” on three different occasions this month:

7 May: Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS-E), Friedrich-Alexander Universität (FAU) Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany

15 May: Rights & Gender and the Poverty & Global Health research groups at the Christian Michelsen Institute (CMI), Bergen

22 May: Global Health Anthropology research group, Centre for International Health (CIH), Bergen

June

30 May – 04 June: Research visit to the UK, connecting with academics at the University of Cambridge, University of Glasgow, University of Oxford, and UCL / KCL. This trip was very fruitful in allowing me to meet in person with collaborators to discuss plans for future workshops, joint publications, research translation, and ERC grant applications.

07 June: Submitted my first deliverable for my MSCA project — an ethics plan — on the Participant Portal. It is, effectively, a portal to a black hole few can escape unscathed. Fortunately, my “grant manager” (unofficial title) was kind enough to walk me through the submission process.

In Q2, I have several upcoming tasks related to the project ahead of me:

1. Register my project with Sikt (Norwegian Agency for Shared Services and Research)
2. Get in touch with the Data Protection Officer at UiB
3. Finalize plans for fieldwork, conference & workshop trip to Malaysia, Indonesia, and Japan this summer
4. Submit travel reimbursement request for the UK trip, and advance request for upcoming trip.

But first, I have to enjoy the sun in the rare moments when it comes out in Bergen.