Copenhagen ADI Conference 2017
9th annual international ADI conference
Asian Dynamics Initiative
University of Copenhagen 26-28 June 2017 

Asian Accelerations

Conveners: Lars Højer and Stine Simonsen Puri, Dept. of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen

“Tiger economies” used to associate Asia with speed. Yet, it is increasingly clear that while some ”tiger economies” continue to have elevated growth rates along with rising prices, the general picture is much more complex – and sometimes previous hopes are turned into new fears of stagnation or rapid decline. In this panel we want to add to economic graphs and discourses representing Asian developing economies with ethnographic explorations of living with graphs, numbers, discourses and realities of booms and bursts. How are people in various parts of Asia reacting to – and living “in” – accelerating changes, and how do they imagine the processes that they are part of? What happens when things (are believed to) escalate “upwards” or “downwards”?

We invite papers that focus on specific cases of accelerating economic change in connection with for example infrastructural changes, price changes etc., but we also welcome papers concerned with rapid political changes or changes in belief. It is our aim that the panel will shed light on Asian changes from a bottom up approach, while also developing ideas of how to understand the nature of change in modern times.