Cities and themes of gex courses in 2025

Bali / Lombok: Marine Ecosystem Conservation and Sustainable Oceanic Livelihoods – A/P Donald Favareau & Ms Sam Shu Qin

This course explores community-based management for sustainable natural resource harvesting and alternative livelihoods for coastal communities. It focuses on how fishermen collectives in Bali and Lombok transitioned from environmentally destructive practices to becoming leaders in conservation and social enterprises. Students will engage with marine conservation organizations to learn about the global marine wildlife trade, sustainable management practices for marine life such as octopuses, turtles, and manta rays, and efforts to restore their ecosystems. These real-world interactions offer insights into the challenges and successes of marine conservation, and lessons that can be applied to Southeast Asia and beyond. 

Bangkok-KL: Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) – Dr Roweena Yip

GEx Bangkok-KL explores how intangible cultural heritage is practised, transmitted, and documented in Thailand and Malaysia in order to examine the relationship between culture, identity, and community. Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) refers to non-physical practices and knowledge that are part of a community’s cultural identity. Immersing themselves in sights, sounds, and smells off the beaten track, students will analyze and evaluate the impact of food, the performing arts and architecture on local communities through immersive activities including guided tours, food ethnography and digital archiving workshops. Students will take a comparative view and evaluate different perspectives on ICH in both countries.   

Beijing: Technology, Society, Entrepreneurship – Dr Lee Chee Keng 

GEx Beijing provides an opportunity to experience and gain access to the business and innovation landscape supporting China’s rising global prominence. We will study cutting-edge innovation in important industries including social media, Artificial Intelligence, and energy, through visits to a range of companies and institutions, from State Owned Enterprise to huge digital conglomerates, that have and will continue to define China’s economic trajectory and its role in the global economy. We will observe and consider the question: how has technology and enterprises transformed and continue to transform the lives of the Chinese people, and the world?  

Chiang Mai: Food, Culture, and Sustainability – A/P Peter Vail

GEx Chiang Mai focuses on the production/consumption of food and how it connects to society, culture, and environment in Thailand. We explore these themes using a hands-on approach, in which students will have the opportunity to participate in food production (inc. agriculture), learn how to cook a variety of local cuisines, and to examine how food consumption/production relates to cultural sensibilities, informs ‘gastronationalism’, and impacts socioeconomic change.  

We will engage with an array of partners, including food entrepreneurs, conservationists, farmers, and other primary producers, all of whom contribute to Thailand’s aim of being ‘the Kitchen of the World’.

Chicago: Agritech Enterprises in the Heart of America – Dr Jerome Kok

The associations that people develop with food often go beyond sustenance. Food therefore typically also reflects and can shape the technology, culture, as well as society of the time. In Chicago, we try to encounter these complex interactions with food through an inter-disciplinary approach that looks at technology development together with social development trajectories.

In Chicago, history influences its present food context while the city continues to drive modern technologies and global brands in food. We therefore ask the question: are there trade-offs across different communities as food stories develop across the city? Furthermore, how are the costs being managed?

Manila-Tacloban: Disaster Resilience and Climate Adaptation – Dr Shelley Tuazon Guyton

The Philippines is one of the most disaster-affected countries in the world, as well as one of the “frontline” communities facing the impacts of climate change. In this GEx, we explore how people live with vulnerabilities to environmental disaster in the age of climate crisis, and what it means for them to adapt and become resilient. Students engage with NGOs, urban designers, grassroots organizations, scientists, writers, and disaster-affected people across two cities of the Philippines—Manila (as the National Capital Region) and Tacloban, Leyte (a provincial city). From this vantage, we compare issues and anticipations meaningful across different localities. The course is arranged so that students encounter the diverse ways vulnerability, resilience and adaptation are understood, focusing on inequality and inclusivity in disaster risk reduction practices. 

Mekong Delta: Resilience and Livelihoods at Water’s Edge – Dr Cheng Yi’En

This is a transboundary GEx that takes students on a multi-sensory trip along the Mekong River and delta, beginning in Phnom Penh and ending in Ho Chi Minh City. The course employs the interdisciplinary lens of resilience to explore how individuals, households, and communities in the Mekong delta organise their lives around evolving water and land ecosystems, even as their livelihoods face multiple stressors resulting from rapid development and environmental change. Students will travel across villages and cities, and engage with topics covering cultural identities, rural-urban change, and environmental livelihoods through a series of photography activities and projects with locals.

Nagoya-Tokyo: City, Culture, Technology  – Dr Lee Chee Keng

How does a city evolve and develop? How do cultures and technologies develop in relation to the city? How do culture and technology shape a city, and lives in it? GEx Nagoya-Tokyo examines the roles culture and technology play in everyday lives, and how they complement and conflict with one another in processes of innovation and entrepreneurship to improve lives and drive development and growth. Through site visits, discussions and explorations, students will gain insights into how strategies are derived to develop enterprises, enhance livelihood, create value, and accumulate capital in and beyond the city.

New York: The World’s Global City – Dr Norman Vasu

This course has one core question: How does a city become a global city? In the case of New York, a global city sometimes described as the ‘capital of the world’, did this development come about ineluctably or through design? Expressed in another manner, is New York an organic or willed creation? 

The course employs the theme of the city to understand the tension in all societies between the built (ville) and the lived experience (Cité). This tension cuts to the heart of the human experience as it is a springboard to study how what we construct determines us as much as what we are determines what we construct. 

Paris: Arts, Diplomacy and Social Innovation – Dr Mariana Losada

GEx Paris offers a transformative journey, focusing on Arts, Culture, Diplomacy, and Social Innovation. Students will learn how these themes are intertwined with Paris, a global city connected to other economic and cultural hubs. Beyond having countless cultural offerings and renowned art pieces, Paris is also a center for diplomacy across various fields. The city is recognized for its unique approach to social innovation, promoting initiatives to accelerate green and social transitions.

Sulawesi: Exploring the effects of economic development – Dr Ryan Tans

This GEx examines the social, cultural, and environmental changes associated with Sulawesi’s rapid economic development. Students will learn how nickel mining, tourism, and public investment have made Sulawesi one of Indonesia’s fastest growing regions. However, the nickel that powers green technology in Singapore and Silicon Valley also produces social and environmental effects that threaten the health and livelihoods of fishing and farming communities in Sulawesi. Thus, students will be able to better understand the ways in which global commodity chains, national investment priorities, and provincial development plans affect local communities.

Toronto: Diversity and Inclusion in Governance – Dr Bjorn Gomes

Creating inclusive systems of governance which respect diversity is an important aspiration for many democratic societies in a globalised world. GEx Toronto critically examines the complexities involved in creating such systems for a heterogeneous population. Through an interdisciplinary framework, students will explore how narratives concerning diversity and inclusion are constructed and challenged, how communities are legitimised or pathologised by state institutions, and why struggles for recognition and autonomy succeed or fail as communities work to fashion unity out of difference. Students will engage in self-directed projects within a curated experiential environment, document accomplishments, and contribute to knowledge about Canada.

Yogyakarta / Bandung:  Art, Culture, Nature – Dr Kiven Strohm

To walk the streets of Yogyakarta is to encounter art and culture at every turn, whether in the graffiti, contemporary art spaces, experimental music, or traditional wayang performances. Creating an energetic atmosphere that shapes the life of the city, art and culture are further entwined with an animism that embraces a vibrant natural world. Our GEx is a hands-on affair: we will not only observe and listen, we’ll collaborate, participate, and make. GEx Yogyakarta is a unique opportunity to explore the intersections of the one of the most important art scenes in Southeast Asia, Javanese culture, and the natural environment.