Overview

The inaugural event in the Inter-Asian Connections Conference Series, this conference was organized around twelve concurrent workshops showcasing innovative research from across the social sciences and related disciplines on themes of particular relevance across Asia. This structure enabled intensive “working group” interactions on specific research themes, as well as broader interactions on topics of mutual interest and concern.

The conference featured a number of events open to the general public, including a public keynote panel, “The Asian Century,” delivered by professor Prasenjit Duara (National University of Singapore) [watch video here].

The concluding day of the conference brought all the workshop participants together for an exchange of research agendas that had emerged over the course of the deliberations in Dubai.

The conference also included a plenary session, “Dubai: Interconnecting Asia,” which explored issues of pressing relevance to the Gulf region within the context of Asia and highlighted the distinctive relations between corporate, private, and state organizations in the United Arab Emirates and their potential role in connecting local and international research communities.

Conference Workshops

Border Problems: Theory, Culture, and Political Economy
Workshop directors:
David Ludden, New York University, US
Julie Mostov, Drexel University, Pennsylvania, US
Dina Siddiqi, University of Pennsylvania, US

Distant Divides and Intimate Connections: Migrant Domestic Workers in Asia
Workshop director:
Nicole Constable, University of Pittsburgh, US

Initiatives of Regional Integration in Asia in Comparative Perspective: Concepts, Contents, and Prospects
Workshop directors:
Howard Loewen, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Germany
Anja Zorob, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Germany

Interreferencing Asia: Urban Experiments and the Art of Being Global
Workshop directors:
Aihwa Ong, University of California, Berkeley, US
Ananya Roy, University of California, Berkeley, US

Law-in-Action in Asian Societies and Civilizations
Workshop directors:
Baudouin Dupret, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France
Zouhair Ghazzal, Loyola University, Chicago, US

Multiple Flexibilities: Nation-States, Global Business, and Precarious Labor
Workshop directors:
Kevin Hewison, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US
Arne Kalleberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US

Neoliberal Globalization and Governmentality: State, Civil Society, and the NGO Phenomenon in Asia
Workshop director:
Sangeeta Kamat, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US

Networks of Islamic Learning across Asia: The Role of International Centers of Islamic Learning in Building Ties and Forging New Identities
Workshop director:
Jacqueline Armijo-Hussein, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Postcollective Economic Lives and Livelihoods: Studies of Economy, Institutions, and Everyday Practice in Postsocialist Eurasia and Asia
Workshop directors:
Beth Mitchneck, University of Arizona, US
John Pickles, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US

Sites of Inter-Asian Interaction
Workshop directors:
Sunil Amrith, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK
Timothy Harper, University of Cambridge, UK

South Asia Regional Fellowship Program: Collaborative Research
Workshop directors:
Gopalan Balachandran, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland
Srirupa Roy, Social Science Research Council, New York, and University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US

Transnational Circuits: “Muslim Women” in Asia
Workshop director:
Annelies Moors, ISIM / University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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