Southeast Asia and the islands of the Indian Ocean represent an ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse and intensively interacting cultural space. Most notably going back to anthropologist Robert Heine-Geldern (1885-1968), Austrian ethnographic and anthropological research has a long tradition in this region. Working at the interfaces of digital, cognitive, religious and medical anthropology this regional group conducts contemporary and historical research into questions that reflect the social dynamics, forms of mobility and interrelations of the region. Research topics range from the role of social media in religious practice, to socio-cultural engagement with inherited diseases, medical travel, urban planning, processes of learning and economic aspects of gender dynamics.