Bali / Lombok: Marine Ecosystem Conservation and Sustainable Oceanic Livelihoods – 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.

Bandung – Yogyakarta: Creative Cities – Dr Kiven Strohm

In this GEx, we explore two cities that are renowned centres for creative economy in Indonesia: Bandung and Yogyakarta (Jogja). Each city embraces creative economy strategies with different emphases: To start, Bandung takes a design-centred approach, working mainly through institutional actors, from the private sector to institutions of higher learning, to engage local communities to foster sustainable design innovations around waste and other environmental issues. Jogja, the art capital of Indonesia, on the other hand, takes a more bottom-up approach, with local communities spearheading creative solutions such as traditional crafts of batik and Wayang to street art and contemporary art as avenues to foster economic inclusion, social cohesion and sustainability. Through a hands-on approach, we will learn how Indonesian designers and artists in each of these cities work with local communities to foster social cohesion, inclusive economic growth, and sustainable development, all key aspects driving creative cities.

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 analyse 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-Hangzhou: Technology, Society, Entrepreneurship – Dr Lee Chee Keng

GEx Beijing-Hangzhou 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 start-ups to 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 and food enterprises in the US Midwest – Dr Jerome Kok

This course will provide us with snapshots of the entire food process from farming to enterprise. The broad aim is to appreciate the interdisciplinarity of how food happens in society. We will encounter sensor and indoor climate-control technologies as well as broader modelling frameworks that provide more large-scale data representation. These components will be contextualised by visits to community farms and neighbourhoods deemed to be of lower commercial value to appreciate a different side to the story of food encounters and experiences. The personal histories and cultures across different demographics ultimately affect the appetite for technologies in their food stories.

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, 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: People, Culture, and Nature – Dr Cheng Yi’En

This multi-city GEx takes students on a journey through the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The course uses an interdisciplinary lens, leveraging creative arts and social sciences to explore how individuals, households, and communities organise their lives around evolving spatial, cultural, and natural systems. Students develop a critical appreciation of how people respond to and innovate amid rapid development and environmental change. Travelling across villages and cities, they engage with topics such as cultural identities, rural-urban transitions, and environmental livelihoods through ethnographic activities and photography projects.

Nagoya-Sendai-Tokyo: Living through Design: Encounters with Human-centric Cities, Cultures and Technologies – Dr Tan Da Yang

How to design cities not just for people, but with them in mind? In this course across various cities in Japan, students will explore how human-centric designs shapes everyday life in Japan, across physical, cultural, and technological domains. Students will examine how built environment, social systems, and everyday artefacts reflect principles of inclusivity, accessibility, and care. Through field observations, facilitated workshops, and guided reflections, students will critically engage with examples of human-centric design within the cities, cultural and technological context. The course invites inquiry into how societies organise for well-being, how users shape design, and how design in turn shapes experiences.

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.

Shanghai: History, Culture, and Aesthetics – Dr Jane Loo

GEx Shanghai invites students to explore how Shanghai’s cultural and aesthetic landscape reflects its colonial past, Haipai () hybridity, and evolving identities. Through reflection walks, museum visits, and contemporary and traditional performances, students will consider how space, atmosphere, and design shape perception and expression. Alongside Shanghai’s fast-paced visual culture, students will also engage with traditional Chinese aesthetics such as classical garden design, craft practices, and spatial philosophies. This will allow students to reflect on how different environments express changing cultural and aesthetic values. The programme combines philosophical and anthropological approaches through observation, analysis, and hands-on learning

Stockholm: Environment and Sustainability: Science Meets Policy – Dr Shaun Lin

GEx Stockholm explores environmental and sustainability science concerns through policy lenses. Students will be exposed to topics including but not limited to water (in)security, marine conservation, climate change adaptation, and waste management. Each iteration of the GEx allows students to engage Swedish cities, institutions and its people to explore how local, regional and global forces shape environmental and sustainability action. Students engage in critical reflections of their learning environments and craft their individual research proposal of their chosen topic of choice.

Sulawesi: Communities and the Commons – Dr Ryan Tans

This GEx explores debates over the relationship between environmental sustainability and economic growth by means of encounters with communities that are striving to preserve shared resources and common spaces (ruang bersama) in South Sulawesi. Rapid economic growth has placed new demands on Sulawesi’s rich forests, karsts, and coasts, and on the communities that depend on these landscapes for their livelihoods. Many communities have mobilized to defend these resources, while others have been overwhelmed by the pressures of development. Thus, students will be able to better understand how economic growth affects community-level practices for managing shared resources.

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.