Dr Kearrin Sims is a critical development scholar, with training in International Relations and Sociology. 

Kearrin’s primary interest is how power and politics shape people’s lives. He is concerned by the ways in which so-called “development” processes often serve elites and further disadvantage the vulnerable and impoverished. Accordingly, his research combines political economy analysis with critical discourse analysis and a range of qualitative methods to interrogate the uneven effects of efforts to bring about good change, as well as to learn from the lived experiences of the underprivileged.

Kearrin has oriented his academic career toward the pursuit of social justice. Valuing coalition-building and public dialogue, he has sought to maintain a diverse academic profile that has included research, programme evaluation and policy inputs, service to his field(s), academic and non-academic publishing, teaching, and curriculum design. His research focus has centred around three core themes.

 

1.     Development geopolitics and Asian regionalism

Research under this theme has examined the relationships between multi-scalar transnational connectivity efforts, shifting regional development priorities, new development financing (particularly from China), material infrastructure expansion, and the geopolitics surrounding development’s entanglements. Empirically, this research has centred on Laos and the wider Greater Mekong Subregion, including the China-Indochina Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Corridor. A guiding question of this theme has been the ways in which the intensification of Asian regionalism and associated, uneven, geographies of global capitalism are presenting novel challenges/opportunities for equitable and inclusive development.Seeking to draw out locally-grounded aspirations and understandings, this research has also sought tocritically interrogate the persistent privileging of western-centric theorising within Development Studies.

2.     Technopolitics and Econocentrism

This research grapples with  top-down, apolitical, technocratic and econocentric development interventions. Such heavily-critiqued, yet enduring, approaches to development ignore place-based knowledge and frequently harm the already impoverished and disadvantaged. Drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork in Mainland Southeast Asia, research under this theme seeks to engage directly with communities that have been ill-affected by “development” in order to examine hidden power dynamics, knowledge-power relations, and to give voice to the voiceless.

Overlapping with Theme 1, this empirically diverse research has included analysis of casino economies and special economic zones, airport infrastructures, built environments and heritage zones, as well as state incorporation of ethnic minorities, forced resettlement, political oppression, subaltern resistance and enforced disappearance. Of relevance to Theme 3 (below), this research has also emphasised the importance of community knowledge systems and cultural sensitivities to equitable development, as well as how development discourses are invoked to legitimise the expansion of state and elite power.

3.     Practice-Oriented Alternatives

This research stream represents my primary efforts to translate complex academic concepts and research findings into knowledge forms that are of relevance to policy and practice. Engaging with end-users, this research has a strong applied focus, including monitoring and evaluation, participatory partnerships, and knowledge co-production. Previous and ongoing research partners include local government, non-profit organisations, and the private sector. Key thematic areas of previous and current projects include community leadership and cross-cultural dialogue, arts-based practices and road safety, wellbeing services for cancer patients, and (international) service learning. In addition to end-user partnerships, research and engagement activities under this theme have also sought to promote innovative pedagogies for Development Studies.

 

Kearrin welcomes applications from prospective PhD candidates interested in any of the above research themes. He is currently seeking candidates with an interest in international service learning and community-based service learning, as well as in tourism and development.

Kearrin also welcomes applications to the two Master’s programs that he convenes: JCU's Master of Global Development (MGD) and Master of Public Health-Master of Global Development (MPH-MGD).

 

Teaching

• EV5951: Development in Practice (Level 5; CNS)
• EV5952: Critical Issues in Global Development (Level 5; CNS)
• EV5957: Equitable Development and Social Change (Level 5; CNS)
• SC5900: Special Topic (Level 5; CNS)
• SC5901: Special Topic 1 (Level 5; CNS)
• SC5902: Special Topic 2 (Level 5; CNS)
• SC5903: Literature Review (Level 5; CNS)
• SC5909: Minor Project and Seminar (Level 5; CNS)
• SY1001: Australian Society: An Introduction to Sociology (Level 1; CNS & TSV)

Experience

• 2019 to 2022 - Review Editor, Asian Studies Review
• 2019 to 2022 - (Interim President), Vice President, ECR Committee Member, Development Studies Association of Australia (Australia)
• 2018 to 2022 - Chair, JCU Sustainable Development Working Group, JCU (Australia)
• 2017 to 2022 - Research Fellow, Cairns Institute (James Cook University)
• 2020 to 2021 - Executive Committee Member, Research for Development Impact (RDI) Network (Australia)
• 2020 - Vice-Chancellor OneJCU Committee, JCU (Australia)
• 2017 to 2020 - Treasurer, Association of Mainland Southeast Asia Scholars (AMSEAS) (Australia)
• 2016 to 2017 - Adjunct Fellow, Humanitarian and Development Relief Initiative (HADRI), School of Social Sciences and Psychology (Western Sydney University)
• 2015 to 2017 - Research Associate, Institute for Culture and Society (Western Sydney University)

Research Disciplines

• Development studies (4404)
• Political science (4408)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• International relations (2303)

Awards

• 2017 - Pacific Affairs 2017 William L. Holland Prize. Article: "Gambling on the Future: Casino Enclaves, Development, and Poverty Alleviation in Laos"
• 2015 - Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography Shortlist - Best Graduate Student Paper - "The Asian Development Bank and the production of poverty: Neoliberalism, technocratic modernization and land dispossession in the Greater Mekong Subregion"

Memberships

• 2017 - Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) Affiliate Member Representative for JCU
• 2015 - Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA)

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Perera N, Tsey K, Heyeres M, Whiteside M, Baird L, McCalman J, Cadet-James Y, Calabria B, Hamilton M, Yan L, Zuchowski I, Sims K and Udah H (2022) “We are not stray leaves blowing about in the wind”: exploring the impact of Family Wellbeing empowerment research, 1998–2021. International Journal for Equity in Health, 21.
• Po S and Sims K (2022) The myth of non-interference: Chinese foreign policy in Cambodia. Asian Studies Review, 46 (1). pp. 36-54
• Sims K (in press) BRI as cognitive empire: Epistemic Violence, ethnonationalism and alternative imaginaries in Zomian highlands. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography,
• Sims K (2021) Infrastructure violence and retroliberal development: connectivity and dispossession in Laos. Third World Quarterly, 42 (8). pp. 1788-1808
• Sims K (2021) Risk navigation for Thinking and Working Politically: the work and disappearance of Sombath Somphone. Development Policy Review, 39 (4). pp. 604-620
• Sims K and Roy S (2021) Climate change mitigation and adaptation in Bangladesh: the need for community-based approaches. Asia-Pacific Viewpoint, 62 (2). pp. 143-150

Book Chapters

• Hayes A and Sims K (2022) Violent development in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In: Routledge Handbook of Global Development. Routledge International Handbooks. Routledge, Abingdon, UK
• Rigg J and Sims K (2022) Poverty: no meeting of minds. In: Routledge Handbook of Global Development. Routledge International Handbooks. Routledge, Abingdon, UK
• Sims K (2022) Shifting boundaries of development and activism: the case of Sombath Somphone. In: Activism and Authoritarian Governance in Asia. Politics in Asia. Routledge, London, UK, pp. 42-55
• Sims K, Banks N, Engel S, Hodge P, Makuwira J, Nakamura N, Rigg J and Salamanca A (2022) Introduction. In: Routledge Handbook of Global Development. Routledge International Handbooks. Routledge, Abingdon, UK, pp. 1-12
• Sims K (2021) Lao PDR in 2020: pandemic, debt and resource extraction. In: Southeast Asian Affairs 2021. Southeast Asian Affairs. ISEAS Publishing, Singapore, pp. 141-168
• Sims K (2020) High modernism in a small country: China "develops" Laos. In: The Deer and The Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21st Century. Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, pp. 271-298

More

ResearchOnline@JCU stores 44+ research outputs authored by Dr Kearrin Sims from 2011 onwards.

Current and recent Research Funding to JCU is shown by funding source and project.

Advisory Accreditation: I can be on your Advisory Panel as a Primary or Secondary Advisor.

These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Current

• (Re)storying the Wet Tropics: towards shared governance and a biocultural ecological economics (PhD , Secondary Advisor/AM)
• Failing Feminism: Culture, Female Empowerment and Agricultural Development (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Children's Perceptions of Hope for our Future World (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Global Governance in the era of COVID-19: Application of regime theory in the comparative study of the global response to SARS in 2003 and COVID-19 in 2020 (PhD , Secondary Advisor)

The map shows research collaborations by institution from the past 7 years.
Note: Map points are indicative of the countries or states that institutions are associated with.