Aida Arosoaie
About
Aida Arosoaie is an anthropologist whose work uses multi-situated mixed methodology—namely, archival research, oral history, ethnography, and art-making—to capture the interplay between resource extraction, racial capitalism, technoscience, and postcolonial agendas of socio-environmental justice,
Aida is currently a PhD Candidate in Anthropology (with a Minor in Science and Technology Studies) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her doctoral research investigates the impact of colonial extraction on postcolonial ecologies in Malaysia.
CONTACT
CV
Education
PhD Anthropology
(expected May 2026)
PhD Minor, Science and Technology Studies
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dissertation: Indefinite Excisions: Forest management, rubber cultivation, and social hierarchies in Malaysia
MA Anthropology
(2018-2020)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
MSc Strategic Studies (2014-2016)
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore
BA Politics and Hindi
(2010-2014)
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
Study Abroad: American Institute of Indian Studies, Jaipur, India (2012-2013)
Selected Fellowships, Awards and Grants
External
2025
Roy A. Rappaport Prize, Anthropology and Environment Society, American Anthropological Association
Exploratory Grant, Hagley Library
Travel Grant, Othmer Library, Science History Institute
2024
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Dissertation Fieldwork Grant #10670
2023
National Science Foundation, Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant #2240844
UW-Madison
2025
Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Center for Southeast Asian Studies
2023
Henry Anderson III Award, Global Health Institute
2022
Summer Scholar Award, Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center
Graduate Student Research Award, Institute for Regional and International Studies
Graduate Student Research Award, Global Health Institute
Research Travel Grant, Center for Southeast Asian Studies
2021-2024
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Just Futures Initiative ‘Humanities Education for Anti-racist Learning in STEM’ Fellowship
2021
Science and Technology Studies Mini-Fellowship, Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center
Research & Writing Award, Center for Culture, History, and the Environment
2020
Research Award, Department of Anthropology
Travel Grant, Center for Culture, History, and the Environment
Planetary Health Scholarship, Global Health Institute
2019-2020
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar ‘Interrogating the Plantationocene’Fellowship
2019
Scott Kloeck-Jenson Fellowship for Pre-Dissertation Travel Award
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore
2014
Research Analyst Award, Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research
Selected Publications
Peer-Reviewed Edited Special Issues
2018
“Islamisation in Southeast Asia: Religion, politics, and beyond,” Journal of Religious and
Political Practice, 4(3): 209-213, 2018 (with Nawab Osman)
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Forthcoming
“White Supremacy, Scientific Racism, and Extractivism: A framework for anti-racist histories of science in STEM education” for Science & Education (first author, with Elizabeth Hennessy, Erika Marin-Spiotta, and Evan Hepler-Smith)
2025
“Aesthetics of Immersion: Contemporary Art and Pedagogies of Life in the Malaysian
Rubberscape,” Environmental Humanities 17(2): 313-334
2020
“Malay-Muslim women machineries: PAS Dewan Muslimat and UMNO Wanita in
GE14,” The Roundtable: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs 109(2): 193-208
2019
“The Sound of Silence: Nuancing Religiopolitical Legitimacy and Conceptualizing the Appeal of ISIS in Malaysia,” Contemporary Southeast Asia, 41(1) (with Joseph Liow)
2018
“Speaking Islam/ic: Self-actualization and justice in Malaysia and India,” Journal of
Religious and Political Practice 4(3): 233-255
“Understanding the Creation and Radicalisation of the Student Islamic Movement of India and the Indian Mujahideen,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 41(3)
In preparation
“Affective Indeterminacy in the Anthropocene: Sustainable Forestry, Angry Spirits, and Orang Asli Limbo in Malaysia,” Cultural Anthropology [recipient of the Roy A. Rappaport Prize]
“Racialized Metabolic Shift: Biochemistry, biocentrism, and the ‘marriage of agriculture and health’ in British Malaya” Social Studies of Science
“Synthetic Afflictions: Climate Change and Disease across the Asian Rubber Belt,” American Ethnologist
Book Reviews
2020
“Claiming Indigeneity in precarious landscapes: Race, economic globalization and climate change in Rooibos land,” Anthropology Book Forum 6(1)
Public Anthropology
2022
“Plantation Worlds Syllabus.” Fieldsights: Syllabus Archive, Society for Cultural Anthropology , June 14 (with Sophie Sapp Moore)
2021
“The Shitty Affairs of British Colonialism in Malaya: Manicuring ‘Native’ Agriculture through Race-Specific Livestock Interbreeding,” Platypus: Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC), 26 October
Selected Presentations
Invited Talks
2025
“Rogue Justice: Shifting home range across the segregationist landscape of elephant conservation in Malaysia,” Holtz Center for STS, UW-Madison
2023
“Aesthetics of Immersion: Contemporary Art and Pedagogies of Life on the Malaysian Rubberscape,” Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Onomichi, Onomichi, Japan
Panels Organized
2026
“Malaysian State(s) of Enclosure,” Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies (AAS), March 12-15 (Vancouver, Canada; with Alice Rudge)
2025
“Multiscalar Violence and the Anthropocene,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November (New Orleans, USA; with Kevin Burke)
“Malaysian State(s) of Enclosure,” Association for Southeast Asian Studies Annual Conference 2025, September 15 (Cambridge, UK; with Alice Rudge)
“Rescaling the Malayan Emergency,” Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, March 14 (Columbus, USA)
2024
“Racialized Extraction in Science,” Annual Meeting of the Society of the Social Studies of Science, July 16 (Amsterdam, Netherlands; with Elizabeth Hennessy)
2021
“Being Human in the Plantationocene,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, 20 November (virtual; with Tyler Hook)
“Plantationocene in Southeast Asia,” Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, March 22 (virtual; with Sophie Chao)
2019
“Countering Violent Extremism: State Narrative, Post Colonialism and Islam,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 22 (San Diego, USA)
“Malaysia in Transition? Before and After the History May 2018 General Elections,” Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, March 22 (Denver, USA; with Nawab Osman)
2018
“Women, Islam and Post-Colonial Realities in Asia,” Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, March 22 (Washington DC, USA)
Papers Presented
2025
“Affective Indeterminacy in the Anthropocene: Sustainable forestry, angry spirits, and Orang Asli limbo in Malaysia,” Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 19-23 (New Orleans, USA; finalist on the Rappaport Prize Panel)
“The Spectral Terrain of Gendered Crip Ecologies and Environmental Racism,” Roundtable Discussion, Annual Meeting of the AAA, November 23 (New Orleans, USA)
“Shifting Regimes of Property in Bumiputra Malaysia,” Association for Southeast Asian Studies Annual Conference 2025, September 15 (Cambridge, UK)
“Retooled Excisions: Scientific Innovations and Postcolonial Socio-Environmental Justice,” Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, 3-6 September (Seattle, USA)
“Extraction,” Political Concepts Graduate Conference, New School for Social Research, March 28-29 (NYC, USA)
“Jungle Warfare: Chemical weapons and the technological affordances between science, industry, and the military during the Malayan Emergency,” Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, March 14 (Columbus, USA)
2024
“Indefinite Excisions: Tracing Extraction across Post-/Colonial Plantation Worlds,” Extraction and its Ecologies Workshop organized by Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, 6-8 April (Munich, Germany)
2022
“The Racialized Metabolic Drift: Tackling nutrient deficiencies through livestock breeding in British Malaya,” the Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science/ESOCITE, 9 December (Cholula, Mexico)
2021
“Aesthetics of possibility within plantation lifeworlds: Rubber in the life and work of Shooshie Sulaiman,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 22 (virtual)
“The Aesthetics of Immersion in the Rubberscape: Decolonial Possibilities with-in Malaysian plantations lifeworlds,” Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, March 22 (virtual)
2019
“Religious rehabilitation in Singapore: religion, race, and state politics,” Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, November 22 (San Diego, USA)
“The three-cornered fight of masculinities in Malaysia’s GE14,” Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, March 22 (Denver, USA)
2017
“Righteousness and Honour: Bottom-up Islamization in Malaysia and India,” Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, March 19 (Toronto, Canada)
Research ExperienceAppointments
2024 – 2026
Project Assistant, NSF Project “Design for Pedagogical Change in the Geosciences,” Wisconsin Center for Education Research, UW-Madison
2021 – 2024
Project Assistant, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Just Futures Initiative “Humanities Education for Anti-racist Literacy in STEM,” UW-Madison
2019 – 2021
Project Assistant, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar “Interrogating the Plantationocene,” UW-Madison
2016 – 2018
Associate Research Fellow, Malaysia Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Fieldwork
2025
Malaysia (February, December);
2024
Malaysia (January – August), Indonesia (January), India (February); Sri Lanka (March);
2023
Malaysia (January – December), Singapore (February), Japan (April); Thailand (May, August), Philippines (August), Sri Lanka (August), Indonesia (September);
2022
Malaysia (May-August, December);
2019
Indonesia (May, June), Malaysia (July-August);
2018
Bangladesh (February), Pakistan (February), Malaysia (February-May);
2017
Malaysia (January-March; July-September); Indonesia (September); Turkey (October).
2016
Malaysia (September-November); India (December).
Archives
UK
The National Archives; London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; British Library; The Archives Collection at Kew Gardens; Special Collections at Bodleian Library; Cambridge University Archives, 2020-2024.
Malaysia
National Archives of Malaysia; Malaysian Rubber Board; International Rubber Research and Development Board, 2022-2025.
Singapore
National Archives of Singapore, 2022.
France
Nancy School of Forestry, 2025.
US
The United States Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory; Rockefeller Archive Center; Science History Institute; Hagley Library, 2025.
Teaching ExperienceInstructor
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (ANTHRO 104, Summer 2025)
Race and the Scientific Method (SOC 496, Fall 2024; designed & taught)
TA
HEALing the Sciences (2022; 2024)
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (ANTHRO 104, Fall 2018, Spring 2019; Fall 2020; Spring 2021)
Exhibitions
2025
“HEMATOPOIESIS,” multimedia installations, Department of Art, UW-Madison (collaboration with Blue Naga)
The Harvest Floor, film screening at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, 3-6 September (Seattle, USA)
2024
“SLAUGHTERHOUSE” by tract mutiny; (co-founder), School of Education Art Gallery, UW-Madison (solo) https://tractmutiny.com/slaughterhouse
2022
“Kancil Mengadap Beringin (The Mousedeer Comes Before the Banyan Tree)”, Shooshie Sulaiman, Singapore Biennale Natasha (collaborator)
2020
“The Prophecy,” Fabrice Monteiro, Chazen Museum of Art (curatorial collaborator)
Professional Service
2025
Search Committee, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, UW-Madison
2019 – 2021
Co-Organizer, Borghesi-Mellon Workshop Alien Earth: Introduction to Planetary Humanities, Center for the Humanities, UW-Madison
2020 – 2022
Graduate Associate Organizing Committee, Center for Culture, History and the Environment, UW-Madison
2022
Co-organizer, CHE 2022 Graduate Student Symposium “Re-/Generation”
2019 – 2020
President of Southeast Asian Research Group (SEARG), UW-Madison
Co-organizer, 4th Annual SEARG Symposium Development and the Built Environment in Southeast Asia (cancelled due to Covid-19)
LanguagesRomanian – Native;
English – Full Proficiency; Malay – Full Proficiency; Hindi – Full Proficiency; Spanish – Intermediate; Portuguese – Intermediate; French – Intermediate
Professional Affiliations
American Anthropological Association
Society of the Social Studies of Science
Association of Asian Studies
Association for Southeast Asian Studies