She researches on issues of knowledge production, intellectual history, urbanism, postcolonial identities and visual arts and politics in Southeast Asia. She is author of Modern Dreams: An Inquiry into Power, Cultural Production, and the Cityscape in Contemporary Urban Penang, Malaysia (2002), a co-editor of Asia in Europe, Europe in Asia: Rethinking Academic, Social and Cultural Linkages, and editor of Decentering and Diversifying Southeast Asian Studies: Perspectives from the Region (2011).