Peck '23 is from Singapore and misses having fresh chilli padi in their meals everyday. Peck studies anthropology and is thinking deeply about migration, diaspora, Southeast Asian life, decoloniality, and how to hold stories with care. Peck owes everything to their family, their ancestors, and the friends who organize, learn, and build with them.

Project:

Singapore’s last islanders, unwillingly relocated from the Southern islands in the 1970s, have resisted the erasure of their island histories by the state through gathering and sharing oral histories from their community. These oral history projects have prompted transformative public negotiations of indigeneity, land-sea relations, and ecological futurity in Singapore and its islands. Peck's project seeks to understand what public history projects on Southern islanders teach us about Singaporean history, indigeneity, and relation to place through interviews with the descendants who are collecting these stories as well as archival research on broader narratives of indigeneity in Southeast Asia. Peck also hopes to collaborate with environmental educators and activists in Singapore to consider in community how islander histories can guide our futures.

Mentor: Professor Lauren Yapp