{"id":486779,"date":"2025-10-02T10:27:51","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T10:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studyinternational.com\/?p=486779"},"modified":"2025-10-01T16:12:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T16:12:51","slug":"history-phd-insects-ruizhi-choo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studyinternational.com\/news\/history-phd-insects-ruizhi-choo\/","title":{"rendered":"What was life like in colonial Malaya? History PhD says the answer lies with insects"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you think about history<\/a>, you probably picture cannon fire, the clashing of empires, or dusty maps redrawn by colonisers. You might even hear the echo of battlefield drums ringing in your ear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But History PhD student Ruizhi Choo<\/a>\u00a0hears something else entirely: the buzzing of insects \u2014 the tiny, often-overlooked creatures that have endured and evolved through centuries of human conflict and environmental change.<\/span><\/p>\n

He tunes into insects — yes, insects.<\/span><\/p>\n

More specifically, he\u2019s digging into the role these creepy crawlies played during Malaya\u2019s colonial period; how they were moved around, managed, and sometimes feared by imperial powers. And it turns out, their tiny footprints left a massive ecological legacy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cInsects are a way to understand environmental change during colonialism,\u201d Ruizhi explains. \u201cThey help us see how colonial policies shaped the landscape, and how those changes still affect us today.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"phd

Ruizhi <\/span>on a visit to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to attend intensive Indonesian classes as part of his PhD in History. Source: Ruizhi Choo<\/p><\/div>\n

A PhD in History\u2026 to study insects?\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Sounds out there, right? But there\u2019s a method to this.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s rewind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1511, the Portuguese captured Malacca, kicking off centuries of European colonial involvement in the Malay Peninsula. Then came the Dutch in 1641, followed by the British, who made their move in Penang in 1786.<\/span><\/p>\n

All that empire-building reshaped entire ecosystems.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey cleared rainforests to grow cash crops like coffee, rubber, and coconuts,\u201d Ruizhi says. \u201cThat created new environments and new food sources for insects.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The colonial officers were benefiting greatly from this (financially, of course), but there was a problem \u2014 insects started eating up the \u201ccash crops\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cue panic from colonial officers. The very insects they weren\u2019t bothered about (or unwillingly transported across oceans) began feasting on these money-making crops.<\/span><\/p>\n

Colonial administrators documented their battles with bugs, thus leaving behind a pile of historical records.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTheir anxiety became our archives,\u201d Ruizhi says. \u201cThey wrote a lot of reports, letters, notes, and that\u2019s what I study. You can track how the environment changed just by looking at how they talked about insects.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"history

As part of his History PhD, he is affiliated with the East-West Centre. Source: Ruizhi Choo<\/p><\/div>\n

Ruizhi is trying his best to help people understand the importance of insects and history.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pesky they can be, they were key to the advancement of public health, colonial anxieties, and the long-term consequences of empire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMosquito-borne diseases changed how people lived in colonial Malaya,” he says. “That, in turn, justified more colonial control \u2014 new laws, urban planning, even who could live where.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The history of insects matters\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Sure, insects might not seem like the most glamorous subject for a PhD in History. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[But] when we only focus on leaders and wars, we miss out on the everyday lives that make up history,\u201d he says. \u201cInsects give us a window into how people lived,\u00a0 and how they coped with change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And in a world facing climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and uncertainty in seemingly everything, understanding how humans and insects have shaped each other across time suddenly feels very timely.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because sometimes, they buzz, bite, and leave itchy reminders of the past and people then survived.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"history

Ruizhi presenting his paper, \u201cOf Ikan & Ichthyology: Local & Imperial Knowledge Production in Malayan Fisheries, 1921-1942″ as part of a panel featuring “Rising Voices in Southeast Asian Studies: Southeast Asians in the Anthropocene” at the Association for Asian Studies conference. Source: Ruizhi Choo<\/p><\/div>\n

Wait, so, how did he get into this?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Before going full entomologist-historian, Ruizhi\u2019s master\u2019s research was on fish. He explored the history of fisheries in Malaya as well as coastal economies, fishing communities, and marine ecosystems.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a lot of work on people\u2019s relationship with the sea,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019ve always been drawn to the natural world, biology, animals, ecology.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, when he first joined the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2013, he wasn\u2019t set on history at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI tried political science, sociology, literature,\u201d Ruizhi recalls. \u201cI thought I\u2019d be a political scientist or sociologist. But nothing really clicked.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, almost nothing. There was one subject he didn\u2019t hate: history.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done history in high school, and nothing really excited me in uni until I came upon a chapter in a book about tigers in colonial Singapore,\u201d Ruizhi admits. \u201cIt was the first time I saw nature and animals being discussed in a historical context. I didn\u2019t realise you could study that kind of history.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"history

Ruizhi and his academic advisor, Professor Leonard Andaya. Source: Ruizhi Choo<\/p><\/div>\n

The path became clearer, and the rest was history (no pun intended).<\/span><\/p>\n

Ruizhi completed his BA in History at NUS, followed by a master\u2019s degree, graduating in 2019 with the prestigious Wang Gungwu Medal and Prize for the best thesis in the Humanities and Social Sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n

After graduation, Ruizhi worked as a senior analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. It was a crash course in real-world relevance and how history intersects with policy, security, and current events.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat job helped me see that history isn\u2019t just about the past,\u201d he says. \u201cIt shapes how we think today, how we govern, how we respond to challenges, even environmental ones.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Academia came calling again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ruizhi wanted to dive deeper into Southeast Asia\u2019s environmental past, and that meant pursuing a PhD in History. In 2023, he moved to the University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa, where he\u2019s now approximately halfway through his History PhD.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"phd

Ruizhi is also a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa, teaching and leading weekly lab sessions in World History courses, such as Global Environmental History and World History of Human Diseases. Source: Ruizhi Choo<\/p><\/div>\n

Why Hawai\u2019i, though?<\/span><\/h2>\n

You might wonder \u2014 if his research is about Malaya, why not stay in Singapore?<\/span><\/p>\n

I took classes with Professor Leonard Andaya when he was guest-teaching at NUS in 2018, and he was the one who first asked if I’d consider doing a PhD,\u201d Ruizhi says. \u201cAt the time, I wasn\u2019t ready \u2014 but after working for a few years, I wrote to him. He was happy to be my advisor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The best part? The University of Hawai\u2019i at Manoa has a very comprehensive Southeast Asian programme and the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies. That\u2019s not all; it is also home to a vibrant community of Southeast Asian students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ruizhi is now Andaya\u2019s final student. It\u2019s a full-circle moment \u2014 and a fitting mentorship for a researcher delving into the overlooked corners of Southeast Asian history.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I read a chapter of about the history of tigers in colonial Malaya and the rest was…history.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1990,"featured_media":486848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[15],"countries":[11],"partner":[],"ppma_author":[1486],"class_list":["post-486779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-postgraduate","tag-feel-good","countries-usa"],"acf":{"modules":null},"meta-shares":{"ppma_authors_name":["Nicole Chin"],"_edit_lock":["1759483840:292"],"_edit_last":["292"],"rank_math_internal_links_processed":["1"],"rank_math_seo_score":["83"],"rank_math_focus_keyword":["history phd,phd in history"],"rank_math_title":["This History PhD candidate is buzzing about insects"],"rank_math_description":["Who knew you could get History PhD that focuses on insects? 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