Yale graduate recognized for exemplary undergraduate research paper on Southeast Asia

Yale graduate recognized for exemplary undergraduate research paper on Southeast Asia

Class of 2026 Yale graduate, Joshua Toshio Maka’ala Ching, received second place in the Southeast Asia Digital Library’s (SEADL) 2026 Undergraduate Paper Award for his research paper, MERDEKA! Self-Determination Movements in West Papua and South Maluku. The annual award recognizes exemplary undergraduate scholarship on the topic of Southeast Asia, with student submissions from across SEADL’s 23 member institutions. 

Joshua’s paper draws on extensive primary and secondary source documentation to proffer a novel argument explaining the varying degrees of success of the West Papuan and South Maluku self-determination movements. Specifically, he argues that the West Papuan movement’s appeal to Melanesian and global Black identities facilitated solidarity with decolonization movements across the Third World, mobilizing international recognition and material support for West Papuan self-determination, while the South Malukan self-determination movement’s ascription to a narrow ethno-religious identity isolated Malukan claims from global struggles for Indigenous independence, resulting in scant recognition and limited success. Through meticulous analysis of each movement’s emergence and transformation from the Dutch colonial era to the present day, Joshua sheds new light on the ways in which, in their “unyielding demand for merdeka, freedom,” the West Papuan and South Malukan movements for self-determination challenge Indonesia’s claims to a unified national identity and, indeed, the paradigm of the nation-state more broadly. 

You can read Joshua’s paper on the SEADL website at this link. 

As a Kanaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian), it is—and will always be—my responsibility to learn about the ongoing struggles for self-determination across the Pacific and in Indigenous communities globally. This essay was one piece of that commitment, and has helped me to recognize the intimacies that bind my people to worlds beyond our own.

Joshua also shared that this research would not have been possible without his professor, Lucy Right's steadfast guidance, encouragement, and belief in his abilities as a scholar.