Shanthi Thambiah

Dr. Shanthi Thambiah serves as an Associate Professor in the Gender Studies Program at the University of Malaya and currently holds a Visiting Senior Fellowship at the LSE Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre (SEAC). Her academic work critically examines the intersection of gender, migration, and emotional politics within Southeast Asia, with specialized focus on the Indonesia-Malaysia migration corridor for domestic labor.

Her research spans Gender Studies, Migration Studies, Emotion Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, and Anthropology. Central to her current work is analyzing the 'emo-scapes' of state discourses on female labor migration, investigating how emotional narratives shape governance frameworks and the lived realities of Indonesian migrant domestic workers in Malaysia. This research challenges official state narratives by centering migrant experiences and the emotional archives of both nations, revealing how governance malfunctions occur when emotionally charged transnational linkages intersect with migration policy.