Chairholder 2025 – 2027: Dr Helena Varkkey
Professor Helena Varkkey appointed to Prince Claus Chair
As of 1 September 2025, Dr. Helena Binti Muhamad Varkkey will formally start the Prince Claus Chair in Equity and Development at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS) on Transboundary Haze Governance in Southeast Asia.
She will hold this position for two years, until 1 September 2027. In addition, she will continue to work at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia.
The lived experiences and imaginaries of those crossing and living in securitized water borders
Dr Helena Varkkey is an Associate Professor of Political Ecology at the Department of International and Strategic Studies, Universiti Malaya. Her areas of expertise include transboundary haze governance in Southeast Asia and global palm oil politics. Her monograph on “The Haze Problem in Southeast Asia: Palm Oil and Politics” was published by Routledge in 2016. Her latest book is a collection of essays on the politics of haze and the environment in Southeast Asia called “The Forests for the Palms”, published by ISEAS Singapore in 2021. Dr Helena has almost two decades of experience in qualitative research, including conducting fieldwork, interviews, and focus groups among various government and non-government stakeholders, and has built up extensive research networks in countries across ASEAN. She has edited and produced reports for the Academy of Sciences Malaysia, UNICEF, and the ASEAN Secretariat.
To be announced.
This section will be updated.
About Dr Varkkey’s research
Dr. Varkkey will be a part of the project Water, Securitisation Anxieties and Border Imaginaries (WASABI). The project aims to compare the lived experiences and imaginaries of those crossing and living in securitized water borders in Sri Lanka, Central America, Eastern Mediterranean, the Southern Caucasus and the Sulu Sea in the Philippines.