ADI Conference 2016

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Ethnographies of Capitalist Transformation across Asia

Conveners: Dan Hirslund, Rune Bennike, Luisa Steur, University of Copenhagen
From the dawn of the industrial revolution onwards, the expansion of capital has played a key role in shaping social and political transformations in Asia societies. Since the global hegemony of finance capital that began in the 1980s, capital has taken on an even more determinant role …

Minorities in Asia between homogenization and fragmentation

Conveners: Ildikó Bellér-Hann and Nikolaos Olma, University of Copenhagen
The persistence of nationalism and the impact of globalization continue to attract a great deal of attention both inside and outside academia. Modern nation-states typically have their origins in the forging of an imagined nation from disparate cultural, regional groupings within their territory …

Heritagizing Asia: The politics of time and space in Asian cities

Convener: Oscar Salemink, University of Copenhagen
Contemporary Asian cities have often been associated with economic success and concomitant visions of modernity. Political authorities, private companies as well as many citizens promote modern lifestyles, which in many cities have been internalized and integrated into urban planning to such a degree that the embrace of success in the guise of modern cityscapes has entailed wholesale destruction of historical rural and urban landscapes, as distinctly un-modern …

Dynamics and drivers of change in Chinese politics

Conveners: Jørgen Delman, Bertel Heurlin, Camilla Tenna Nørup Sørensen, University of Copenhagen, and Anna Ahlers, University of Oslo
The Chinese political system is often cast as a fairly ossified authoritarian party-state system with the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the centre fighting to maintain its monopoly of power without conceding to pressure for political reform. However, some analysts also recognize that the CPC has maintained its legitimacy through its embrace of economic and social reforms  … 

Musical Modernity in Asia

Conveners: Margaret Mehl, University of Copenhagen, David Hebert, Bergen University College, Jonathan Service, University of Oxford
The premise of this panel is that music provides a distinct and even privileged way into examining many facets of global modernity, including transnational flows, whether within Asia, between Europe and Asia or elsewhere. Modernity is here understood as “a condition, historically produced over three centuries around the globe in processes of change that have not ended yet” …

Globalization and Export Opportunities

Conveners : Jakob Roland Munch, University of Copenhagen; Georg Schaur, University of Tennessee
This panel will focus on aspects related to increased economic integration between Europe and Asia. Increasing globalization brings challenges as well as new opportunities for domestic firms. Firms and their workers are more exposed on domestic markets from increased competition from firms in Asia and other low income countries  …

Feminist activism in the PRC: Generational changes, global connections

Conveners: Cecilia Milwertz, NIAS, Elisabeth Engebretsen, University of Oslo
With a focus on how feminists speak and act in diverse publics to address gender issues and injustice more broadly, this panel is concerned with the changing practices of political activism in the People’s Republic of China. We are particularly interested in looking at similarities and differences in modes of organizing and activism between what we suggest is a generational divide on many levels …

The Elusive Pursuit of Regionalism? China and Interconnectivity in East Asia

Convener: Chunrong Liu, Fudan-European Centre for China Studies, University of Copenhagen
Over the last two decades, there has been substantial progress in cooperation in Asia evidenced by the proliferation of free trade negotiations and community building projects. The rise of China and its recent regional interconnectivity projects of Belt and Road Strategy have generated new dynamics to regionalism …

Remembrance and Forgetting of War, Conflict and Disasters in Asia

Convener: Kyoko Murakami, University of Copenhagen
In recent years, the study of commemoration has proved to be fertile ground for research in social sciences and humanities involving Asia. The aftermaths of a wide variety of wars and other conflicts as well as catastrophic natural and man-made disasters have been examined through studies which pay attention to the debates … 

Civil society in South Asia – a comparative approach

Conveners: Peter B. Andersen and Rubya Mehdi, University of Copenhagen
During the recent years the frames of civil society in South Asia have changed in considerably under the impact of international as well as local developments. The World Bank has stressed that good governance may be strengthened by the inclusion of civil society organisations in the governmental development strategies …

Migration and Territorialisation: Asian Connectivity and Transnational Flows

Conveners: Edyta Roszko and Birgitte Schepelern Johansen, University of Copenhagen 
In modern states territoriality is a technology that enables states to control territory, people and things by delimiting and distributing them in a geographic area. However, in spite of visible signs and objects that mark state borders, for many people everyday life continues to take place in a social space that transgresses national borders …

Future Tense: Asia in the World

Participants:

• Engseng Ho, Professor of Anthropology and Islamic Studies, Duke University and Muhammad Alagil Distinguished Visiting Professor in Arabia Asia Studies, ARI, National University of Singapore
• Kenneth Pomeranz, University Professor of Modern Chinese History and in the College, The University of Chicago 
• Tansen Sen, Professor of History, City University New York (CUNY) and NYU Shanghai Campus
• Ravinder Kaur, Director, Centre of Global South Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen

Read more about the roundtable "Future Tense"

Researching Politics and (Big) Data in China/Asia: Opportunities and Challenges

Participants:

• Christian Göbel, professor, East Asian Studies, University of Vienna 
• Lauri Paltemaa, Professor, Contemporary Chinese History, University of Turku 
• Jun Liu, Assistant Professor, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen

Read more more about the roundtable Researching Politics and (Big) Data in China/Asia

Kenneth Pomeranz is University Professor of Modern Chinese History and in the College at the University of Chicago. His field specialities are: Reciprocal influences of state, society and economy in late Imperial and twentieth-century China; the origins of a world economy as the outcome of mutual influences among various regions; and comparative studies of labor, family organization, and economic change in Europe and East Asia. His publications include award winning The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy and The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society and Economy in Inland North China, 1853–1937.

Professor Pomeranz' keynote address: “Wastelands, Heartlands, and El Dorados: Rethinking Territories on China’s Western Frontiers Since 1760”

Tansen Sen is Professor of History, City University New York (CUNY) and NYU Shanghai Campus. He specializes in Asian history and religions and has special scholarly interests in India-China interactions, Indian Ocean trade, Buddhism, and Silk Road archeology. He has done extensive research in India, China, Japan, and Singapore. Tansen Sen is currently working on two book projects: one examines cross-cultural trade in Asia during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the second is about networks of exchange and interactions between India, China and the world.

Professor Sen's keynote address: The Impact of Zheng He’s Expeditions on Indian Ocean Interactions

Engseng Ho is Professor of Anthropology and Professor of History at Duke University in the U.S. Currently he is the Muhammad Alagil Distinguished Visiting Professor in Arabia Asia Studies at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He is an expert on Arab/Muslim diasporas across the Indian Ocean, and their relations with western empires, past and present. At ARI he contributes to the Institute's InterAsia thematic focus through Arabia Asia studies. Recently he convened a conferences onSilk Roads, Muslim Passages: The Islam Question in China’s Expansion Print.

Professor Ho's keynote address: "Wealth and War in East and West Asia: Concepts for a Connective Understanding of Inter-Asian Dynamics"

Christian Göbel is University Professor of Modern China Studies at the Dept. of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna. A political scientist and sinologist by training, his research is concerned with the adaptability of the Chinese Party-State to social, economic and political challenges. He is especially interested in effects of digital technology on local governance in China. In a project funded by the ERC, he examines the emergence and impact of virtual communication platforms that allow Chinese people to openly voice their grievances. Other research interests are corruption and anti-corruption in Taiwan, and the comparative study of authoritarian regimes.

Professor Göbel's keynote address:"Mass Line, Assembly Line, Online: Social Unrest in a Masterplanned China"