The Organising Committee of the ASAA Conference are pleased to announce the participation of the following people at the conference at Wollongong in June 2006. Dr Scott Guggenheim of the World Bank based in Jakarta, Dr Malavika Karlekar from the Centre for Women's Development Studies in New Delhi, Prof Anthony Reid, Director of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore and one of the founders of the ASAA, Prof Patricia Spyer, Chair of Anthropology of Indonesia at Leiden University, Prof Heather Sutherland from the Free University of Amsterdam, Kamala Chandrakirana, Chair of the National Commission on Violence Against Women, Jakarta, Professor Elspeth Probyn, University of Sydney, Louise Williams from the Sydney Morning Herald, Dr Cindy Pan, Media Personality and Author from Sydney and Professor Michael Curtin from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The organising committee takes this opportunity to thank two organizations for their support of the conference through sponsorship, namely the Wollongong City Council and Diggies (a café/restaurant in North Wollongong).

The committee would also like to thank a number of grants that the University of Wollongong and the Asian Studies Association of Australia have received in support of particular events at the conference. The Australia-Korea Foundation has given support to the conference through a grant organised by Dr Brian Yecies of UOW. The grant will be used to support a panel titled “Welcome to Hallyuwood: Spotlight on the Global Popularity of the New Korean Cinema” which will include two top Korean scholars from Yonsei University Research Institute of Media Art. The Australia India Council have contributed to the South Asia Lecture through the sponsorship of Dr Malavika Karlekar. The Australia /Indonesia Institute are generously supporting the Balinese dance performance by Ni Made Pujiwati.

The committee also thanks the generous support of the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (UOW) for sponsorship of the majority of the plenaries, the Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention (UOW) for assisting with the sponsorship of the Security Plenary and the Monash Asia Institute (Monash) for assisting with the sponsorship of the World History plenary.

Finally the committee wishes to thank the host of the 16th Biennial Conference of the ASAA, the Faculty of Arts and the University of Wollongong, for their very generous sponsorship and support of this conference, without which the conference could not have taken place.