Victor T. King

About Professor Victor T. King

Victor T. (Terry) King has been teaching and undertaking research in the sociology and anthropology of South East Asia since the early 1970s when he completed his Master's degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies and then undertook field research in Kalimantan, Indonesia for his doctoral degree in social anthropology at the University of Hull. Most of his career was spent in the Centre for South-East Asian Studies and the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Hull. He was appointed to a Professorship there in 1988 and at various times served as Director of the Centre for South-East Asian Studies, Dean of the School of Social and Political Sciences, Director of the University Graduate School and Pro-Vice-Chancellor. He joined Leeds University in 2005 and became Executive Director of the White Rose East Asia Centre (WREAC) in 2006. From August 2010 he took early retirement from the University but continues on a part-time basis as Director of WREAC.

He has also served as Secretary of the British Academy's Management Committee for its British Institute in South-East Asia from 1983 to 1986 and then its London-based Committee for South-East Asian Studies from 1986 to 1998 when he then served as Chair of the Committee until 2002. He now sits (ex officio) on the successor committee which has been incorporated into the Association of South-East Asian Studies in the United Kingdom (ASEASUK) as its Research Committee.

Recent Activities

Professor King served as Chair of the Asian Studies sub-panel in the Research Assessment Exercise 2008 and with sub-panel members compiled a paper on Asian Studies in the UK, based on the submissions to the sub-panel. He was appointed as Chair of the Association of South-East Asian Studies in the United Kingdom (ASEASUK) in January 2007, an organisation which he joined in 1973 and for which he served as Honorary Secretary from 1976 to 1983, as Treasurer from 1988 to 1992 and Committee Member from 1979 to 1992 and 2005 to 2007. He completed his tenure as Chair in December 2010. The Association celebrated its fortieth aniversary in 2009 and Professor King has written a 'personal history' of ASEASUK which has been published by the Association and formed part of its celebrations at its annual conference in Swansea in September 2009.

Professor King is currently working with colleagues in the department and at Leeds Metropolitan University and the IMI Universtiy Centre, Luzern, Switzerland on a comparative study of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in South East Asia funded by the British Academy. Field research was undertaken in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos and Vietnam in 2009 and 2010. Further research is scheduled in 2010 in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. It is anticipated that as part of the outputs a co-edited book will be produced on UNESCO sites.

He is also engaged in writing a book entitled Identities in Motion: the Sociology of Cultural Change in Southeast Asia which is intended as a companion volume to his recently published The Sociology of Southeast Asia: Transformations in a Developing Region ' (NIAS Press/University of Hawai'i Press, 2008). He is planning to write a substantially revised edition of his co-authored book with William D.Wilder on The Modern Anthropology of South-East Asia: an Introduction  which was published by by Routledge in 2003 and reprinted in 2006. He is also currently co-editing a volume on The Historical Construction of South East Asian Studies with Professor Park Seung Woo; the book proposal has been considered by the Institute of South East Asian Studies, Singapore.