The York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR) is calling for proposals for its third international graduate student conference, Changing Asia in the Globalizing World: Boundaries, Identity and Transnationalism, being held May 1 and 2, 2015, at York University’s Glendon campus.
The concept of “Asia” implies a fixed geographical, demographic, economic, political and cultural region. However, viewed from multiple perspectives, its “essence” becomes indeterminate and boundaries fuzzy.From colonization to decolonization, from military invasion to cultural inter-penetration, from international power struggle to regional association, Asia and Asian Diasporas are affected by and affecting globalization in various ways.
YCAR’s third international graduate student conference will explore three interconnected themes related to the changing landscape and redefinition of Asia and Asian Diasporas:
How do immigration, transportation, communication, cooperation and other forms of interaction create, maintain, rupture and transcend the cultural, political, geographical and historical boundaries of Asia? How do we research the “in-between” spaces and concepts such as diasporas and borderlands, which, while premised on the existence of boundaries, contain a subversive potential?
- How has globalization shaped Asia’s identities? How are place-bound identities constructed within the diaspora?
- Within the context of transnationalism, how do flows of people, ideas, goods, capital, and technologies subvert or stabilize the center-periphery relations? How is the geography of knowledge implicated in the geography of politics beyond the boundary of the nation state?
The conference is multidisciplinary, and submissions that bring together various theories, methods, and empirical findings in new and creative ways are encouraged. Submissions are welcome from area studies, cultural studies, literary studies, media studies, history, religious studies, women’s studies, disability studies, urban studies, communication studies, art history, philosophy, geography, sociology, anthropology, political science and other academic disciplines.
Topics or perspective may include, but are not limited to:
- Epistemology and methodology
- Globalization and indigenization
- Governance and development
- History and theory
- Migration and diaspora
- Political ecology
- Race, gender, and class
- Social movements and social justice
- Cultural contact and identity
- Acculturation, assimilation, transculturation, and hybridization
Interested participants should submit by email a paper title, abstract with keywords (250 words maximum) along with brief biographical information (name, affiliation, stage of graduate study) by Nov. 1. All information should be included in one Word document attached to the e-mail. Save the Word document with your name as the file name.
Authors will be notified of decisions in early December by e-mail and must submit completed papers by March 25, 2015. Please note that presenters who do not submit completed papers in advance may be asked to give up their place in the program.
E-mail submissions to the conference organizers at ycargrst@yorku.ca.
There may be an opportunity to collaborate on a common peer-reviewed publication, which will be discussed at the conference.
More information about the conference can be found on the YCAR graduate student website.