Dear friends and supporters,

My name is Yifan, and I am a social anthropologist and doctoral researcher specializing in Indic religions, transnational migration, and diaspora studies. I am currently pursuing a PhD in Indian Culture and Languages at Ghent University in Belgium.

This journey is both an academic pursuit and a deeply personal commitment to understanding how small but resilient communities maintain cultural and spiritual traditions across borders and generations.

My research is titled:

“The Jains in Contemporary Southeast Asia: Their Distinctiveness and Identities (Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore)”

This project investigates how Jain communities—originally from India—have established religious and social lives in Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore since the colonial period. I explore how these communities negotiated host-country nationalism, post-colonial transitions, and now, the pressures of globalization. My work asks how young Jains today engage with their traditions in multicultural and often secular urban environments, and how their identities continue to evolve.

I currently lack funding to meet certain academic needs. However, I still need to raise €10,000 to cover my costs over the coming academic years. Even though I have applied to numerous scholarships, fellowships, and grants, the majority of them limit their support to specific regions or narrowly defined fields.

This is why I am turning to my community for help. Any contribution—big or small—will directly support the continuation of this PhD. Your support allows me to pay my tuition, access research materials, and complete a project that will contribute not only to academic discourse but also to public understanding of religious diversity and diasporic resilience in Asia.

If you are unable to make a financial donation, I would greatly appreciate it if you could simply share this campaign with your networks. In return, I will offer regular updates from my research, along with stories and insights from the field as small tokens of appreciation.

I am looking for financial assistance—especially from the Jains and Jain diasporas—to help me complete my PhD.

Thank you for taking the time to read and for being part of a journey that centers overlooked voices and builds cross-cultural understanding.

With gratitude,

Yifan