Tana Li, BA, MA (Peking University), Graduate Diploma, PhD (ANU)
Senior Fellow, Division of Pacific and Asian History and Director, Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora

Email: tana.li@anu.edu.au

Biographical Statement

I am currently organizing a research project which tries to reconceptualize the histories of a core Asian region, the Gulf of Tongking, as a "Mini Asian Mediterranean Sea". We seek both significant empirical and conceptual contributions to understand the nature and degree of the interactions and how these might have helped form the roots of modern ethnic configurations and nation states in this region. I am also writing a maritime history of Vietnam in longue durée perspective.

Research Interests

History of Vietnamese society, economy and technology, 15th-19th centuries; regional trade and the history of ports in the South China Sea region; overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia; Vietnamese historiography

Key Publications

• 'Nguyen Cochichina: Southern Vietnam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries', SEAP, Cornell University, 1998. Two Vietnamese editions published in Hue (1995) and Hochiminh City (1997), and Chinese edition published in Beijing (2000).
• (Joint ed. with Nola Cooke), Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750-1880, Rowman and Littlefield/ Singapore University press, 2004.
• (Joint ed. with Anthony Reid), Southern Vietnam under the Nguyen, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore/ECHOSEA, ANU, 1993, (reprinted 1995).
• 'A View from the Sea: Perspectives on the Northern and Central Vietnamese Coast', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, no.1, 37, Feb 2006: 83–102.
• 'An Alternative Vietnam: The Nguyen Kingdom in the 17th and 18th Century', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, March 1998.
• 'Peasants on the Move: A Study of Rural–to–Urban Migration in the Hanoi Region', Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1996.
• (Joint ed. with Nguyen Cam Thuy) Chinese Epigraphic Materials in Hochiminh City, Press of Social Sciences, Hanoi, 1999.
• (Co–author with Paul Van Dyke) "Canton, Cancao, and Cochinchina: New Data and New Light on Eighteenth-Century Canton and the Nanyang", Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, vol.1, Feb 2007: 10-29.
• 'The Chinese in Vietnam', The Encyclopaedia of the Chinese Overseas, Archipelago Press and Landmark Books, Singapore, 1998.

Career Highlights

Lecturer, Peking University (1983–88); Research Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore (1993-1994); Lecturer/ Senior lecturer, University of Wollongong (1994-Jan.2002); Fellow and Senior Fellow, Australian National University (Feb.2002-present); Visiting Fellow, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University (Sep 2008–Feb 2009).