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In spring 2015, three social scientists from Australia, Thailand and Singapore visit Tallinn University. The Asian Research Centre in Estonia has invited the lecturers to give 4 exciting courses during their stay. The courses focus on political and societal developments in Asia, but their grasp and contents give subject for thought and comparison to students in communication, anthropology, media or cultural studies, socilogu, international relations or political science.

Dr James Gomez is an ex Singapore oppositional leader who currently works at the Zhuhai United International College, established by Beijing Normal University and Hong Kong Baptist University. He has worked in various universities, think tanks and NGOs in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Sweden and Thailand. The Asiaweek magazine has named James as one of Asias 50 most influential communicators and the Newsweek Asia magazine has called him a pioneer due to his work on effective Internet usage in political communication.

James' course "New Media and Politics in Southeast Asia" looks into how civil society groups, parties and civilians in Southeast Asia use alternative social media channels, how it affects the people's political participation, and how the fight over control of social media is fought.

Dr Catherine Earl from Federation University in Austrlia, a social anthropologist, has taught in universities in Australia (Monash University, Victoria University) and Vietnam (Vietnam National University), and has received many awards for her teaching style. Her PhD thesis (2008) research the emergence of the upper middle class in Vietnam cities. It was based on a 15 month field study in Ho Chi Minh City. The results of the research, which looks into the life of educated women migrating from rural areas to cities, and how urbanization in Vietnam (and elsewhere in Southeast Asia) has changed not only the rural and urban life, but also the traditional gender roles, have been published as a book "Vietnam's New Middle Classes: Gender, Career, City" (NIAS Press, 2014). Currently, Catherine is researching the megacities environment by the example of Ho Chi Minh City, as well as the fate of children and young people at the Southeast Asian conflict zones and diaspora communities.

Catherine's course "Middle Class Southeast Asia" handles the rise of the middle class in Southeast Asia and the globalizing Earth during the 21st century (also called the Asian century). The main focus is on the political, sociocultural and economic behaviour of the middle class as well as it's role in the economic growth of Southeast Asian countries.

Catherine's other course "Writing Identities" helps students to develop their writing skills on culture and identity as well as analyse ethnographic texts.

Dr Pavin Chachavalpongpun is a highly regarded Thai dissident, a clamant Thai social media activist with over 75,000 followers on Facebook both from Thailand and the rest of the world. He is currently working at Kyoto University at the Southeast Asia research centre. Pavin has authored multiple books ("A Plastic Nation: The Curse of Thainess in Thai-Burmese Relations"; "Reinventing Thailand: Thaksin and His Foreign Policy"). He has a PhD in political science (2002) from London University's School of Oriental and African Studies).

Pavin's course "Southeast Asian states and societies: contestations in transformed politics" gives a good overview and inside information about the political landscape of today's Southeast Asian countries, their societal values and challenges, and different forms of democraccy, such as Twittemocrisation, disciplined democracy, "democracy-favouring" autoritarianism, and many others.

The courses are held on a Master's level, but are open to PhD students and advanced Bachelor students. Details of the course can be found at: