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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20170316T142000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20200316T151000
DTSTAMP:20200825T195421Z
CREATED:20200825T195421Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200825T195421Z
UID:10000587-1489674000-1584371400@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:Alternatives to Incarceration in Latin America and the Caribbean
DESCRIPTION:Drug laws and the region’s untenable prison crisis are at the center of the drug policy debate in Latin America and the Caribbean. The incarceration of low-level drug offenders for exceptionally long sentences has left the region’s prisons bursting at the seams; the impact is not only felt by those incarcerated\, but also by their families and communities. Cutting edge research by the Colectivo de Estudios Drogas y Derecho (Research Consortium on Drugs and the Law\, CEDD) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) sheds new light on the problem and efforts to address it through alternatives to incarceration. \nThe latest investigation carried out by CEDD\, which brings together researchers from 9 Latin American countries\, shows that despite the lively debate taking place across the region\, the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses continues to grow. The SSRC’s Drugs\, Security and Democracy (DSD) Program is carrying out an investigation on drug courts in Latin America and the Caribbean. The research to date offers an analysis and critique of drug courts as a public policy option that is increasingly under consideration by Latin American and Caribbean countries\, and the lessons to be learned from the U.S. experience. The session will conclude with a discussion of other alternatives to incarceration\, including measures taken prior to the initiation of a criminal proceeding.
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/alternatives-to-incarceration-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean-2/
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181203T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181203T200000
DTSTAMP:20211019T175043Z
CREATED:20200924T151054Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211019T175043Z
UID:10000613-1543852800-1543867200@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:Abe Global Washington\, DC | Japanese and American Innovation in the Global Age
DESCRIPTION:Event Livestream\n \nOverview\nBoth the United States and Japan have long taken pride in their robust scientific research communities’ contributions to economic growth and human welfare. But the slowing pace and rising costs of research\, along with strong competition from China and India\, have challenged both governments to rethink their approaches to science and technology policy and set agendas that encourage innovation towards solving demanding social problems. \nThe Abe Fellows Global Forum will bring together experts to discuss how the United States and Japan are responding to these challenges\, as well as the rapidly rising innovation hubs in China\, India\, and Singapore. Panelists will consider institutional factors that encourage or discourage innovation; the impact of big data and AI on innovation policies and strategies; cultures of innovation in Japan\, the US and other Asian countries; conflicts between the interests of companies\, national populations\, and global welfare; and challenges for the future of scientific innovation. \nOver the last 25 years\, the Abe Fellowship Program has supported a number of fellows whose research projects address the issues and mechanisms of innovation. For this event\, a selection of these expert fellows from the fields of economics\, political science\, political economy\, engineering and public policy\, and organizational sociology engaged with the opportunities and challenges of innovation in a global age. \n  \nA new initiative of the Abe Fellowship Program\, the Abe Fellows Global Forum (Abe Global) is designed to bring Abe Fellow research and expertise on pressing issues of global concern to broader audiences. Abe Global will host several events each year in partnership with academic and civic organizations throughout the United States. The Abe Fellowship Program is a partnership between the Social Science Research Council and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/abe-global-washington-dc-japanese-and-american-innovation-in-the-global-age/
LOCATION:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace\, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW\, Washington\, DC\, 20036\, United States
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20181204
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20181205
DTSTAMP:20211013T165356Z
CREATED:20211013T165356Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211013T165356Z
UID:10000778-1543881600-1543967999@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:VASS and SSRC Sign Memorandum of Understanding 30 Years after First MOU
DESCRIPTION:The President of SSRC and the President of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences signed a memorandum of understanding to extend over 30 years of collaboration in research\, training\, and scientific collaboration. \n \nMeeting participants: (Seated left to right) Alondra Nelson and Nguyen Quang Thuan.(Standing left to right) Van Tran\, Mary McDonnell\, Dang Nguyen Anh\, Nguyen Thanh Ha\, Nguyen Thi Hoai Le\, and Nguyen Duc Vinh. \n  \nThirty years after signing the first historic memorandum of understanding in September 1988\, SSRC and VASS affirmed their intent to continue to cooperate in social science research\, training\, exchange\, knowledge and data sharing\, and policy consultation. The agreement expressed SSRC and VASS’ commitment to collaborate based on four integrated modalities: \n1. Training to equip social scientists with new and interdisciplinary knowledge and skills to investigate rapid socioeconomic change and its social implications\, and to communicate their findings and implications; \n2. Research on current and future social dimensions of socioeconomic development; \n3. Policy consultation to inform both the decision-makers and the environment in which policies and decisions are made; and \n4. Sharing knowledge and data. \n  \nProfessor Thuan thanked SSRC for over 30 years of support and praised highly the effectiveness of the interdisciplinary social research methods training program in advancing the capacity of VASS researchers. The program has been institutionalized within VASS’ Graduate Academy of Social Sciences (GASS)\, where it continues to be a part of the core curriculum. President Alondra Nelson also expressed the Council’s appreciation for VASS’ support over the years and for the excellent hosting of the recent Conference on InterAsian Connections VI in Hanoi\, December 4-7\, 2018. \n     \n(Left) Dr. Mary McDonnell gives opening remarks at the Conference on InterAsian Connections VI\, providing an overview of SSRC’s work in Asia and highlighting ongoing work in Vietnam. (Right) Drs. Prasenjit Duara\, Alondra Nelson\, and Dang Nguyen Anh present in a panel on Social Knowledge and Boundary Crossing.\n  \nSince the mid-1980s\, the Council has partnered with VASS to: \n\npromote academic and information exchange between Vietnamese researchers and foreign counterparts;\ndevelop short workshops on social science concepts and methods;\ncollaborate with the Southern Institute of Social Sciences on a project to enhance research\, training\, institution building\, and network creation by examining poverty and socioeconomic mobility in the context of rapid urbanization in southern Vietnam;\ntrain 120 researchers—most of whom were from VASS—in the first ever interdisciplinary social science research training program in Vietnam (this program is now institutionalized within GASS);\norganize study programs in the US for delegations headed by the president and vice president of VASS on various topics\, including the rule of law (2004)\, humanities (2006)\, international relations (2009)\, social work and public policy graduate degrees for GASS (2012)\, human rights (2013)\, US involvement in Vietnam from 1954-1975 (2017)\, and disciplinary\, state\, and regional encyclopedias (2017);\nreview Doi Moi in 1990 and 2005\, looking at Vietnamese youths under 20 years of Doi Moi;\ncarry out the longitudinal Provincial Population Health Study in three provinces in Vietnam\, hold training workshops\, and disseminate key findings (2008-2018); and\norganize the Conference on InterAsian Connections VI in Hanoi (2018).\n\n  \nAlso present at the ceremony were director and associate director of the SSRC’s Vietnam Program\, Mary Byrne McDonnell and Van Bich Thi Tran\, and leaders from VASS\, including: Professor Dr. Dang Nguyen Anh\, Vice President of VASS; Mr. Nguyen Thanh Ha\, Director of the International Cooperation Department; Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Thi Hoai Le\, Director of the Scientific Management Department; and Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Duc Vinh\, Director of the Institute of Sociology.
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/vass-and-ssrc-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-30-years-after-first-mou/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181204T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181207T170000
DTSTAMP:20201021T190619Z
CREATED:20201021T190538Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201021T190619Z
UID:10000657-1543910400-1544202000@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:China’s OBOR Initiative and Its Impacts for Asian Countries
DESCRIPTION:WORKSHOP DIRECTORS:\nAnh Nguyen Dang\nVice-President\, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences\ndanganhphat1609@gmail.com \nWenfei Winnie Wang\nSenior Lecturer in Human Geography\, University of Bristol\nw.wang@bristol.ac.uk \nCALL FOR WORKSHOP PAPERS:\nIn 2013\, Chinese premier Xi Jinping announced a pair of new development and trade initiatives for China and the surrounding region: the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “Twenty-First- Century Maritime Silk Road\,” together known as “One Belt\, One Road“ (OBOR). Along with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)\, the OBOR policies represent an ambitious spatial expansion of Chinese state capitalism\, driven by an excess of industrial production capacity\, as well as by emerging financial capital interests. \nSeveral “corridors” will link specific Chinese regions with countries throughout Asia. A massive “Silk Road Fund” will finance infrastructure projects\, like deep water harbour construction\, satellite towns and fast railroads. Financial and business circles are by and large enthusiastic about the OBOR project and expect high profits for banks and the construction industry. Massive investments are planned and construction has started on several mega projects such as deep water harbour construction\, land traffic infrastructure projects and large scale urban development projects. The development plan also includes the building of a network of fast railway lines\, connecting China with Central Asia\, Southeast Asia\, India and eventually Europe. \nThe increasing dominance of the Chinese economy throughout Asia and beyond is\, however\, clearly visible. As the Chinese Government has embarked on the new strategy of OBOR\, there will be obvious commercial benefits to economies along the Southern Silk Road\, but also geo-political effects like increasing political dependency due to Chinese capital investments and acquisition of property rights in ports and estates. \nThe Chinese government insists that the OBOR strategy is peaceful and directed at only one aim economic prosperity for all countries involved. China’s leaders have stressed the shared benefits of “peaceful development and prosperity” brought about by the OBOR initiative\, while many scholars and political scientists considered it as a tool for China to control the “pivot area” of Eurasia for benefits and geopolitical domination. There will be long-term predictable and un-predictable outcomes for Asia countries who critically need policy to deal with OBOR and China’s influences. A different picture of Asia may emerge with OBOR’s impact. Who is going to benefit in the long run; whether peaceful development is maintained in Asia will have to be seen. \nThis workshop concentrates on the present and future impacts of China’s OBOR initiative. We invite contributions on all aspect of OBOR\, particularly its present and future impacts on Asia and its integration. We welcome papers from authors coming from various disciplines\, especially those who can bring intensive ideas and different perspectives to the workshop.
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/chinas-obor-initiative-and-its-impacts-for-asian-countries/
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181204T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181207T170000
DTSTAMP:20201021T191145Z
CREATED:20201021T191145Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201021T191145Z
UID:10000658-1543910400-1544202000@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:Divine/Transcendent Rulers of Imagined Communities: The Rise and Fall of Royal Nationhood in Asia
DESCRIPTION:Workshop Directors\nWasana Wongsurawat\nAssistant Professor\, History\, Chulalongkorn University\nwwongsurawat@hotmail.com \nMichael K. Connors\nAssociate Professor\, School of Politics History and International Relations\, University of Nottingham\, Malaysia Campus\nmichael.connors@nottingham.edu.my \nCall for Workshop Papers\nThe myth of the divine or virtuous ruler—the son of heaven\, the Buddha reincarnated\, the avatar of Vishnu\, the descendant of the sun goddess\, etc.—is just about as visceral and grounded in lived existence as the imagined community that is the modern nation-state\, a form which has become dominant in the postcolonial era. And they largely shared the same technologies of propagation. Yet\, these two imaginaries that have competed to organize national life have often been regarded in very different light—the nation-state\, and the political projects it was to emulate\, being considered the hallmark of an emerging modernity while the monarchy was perceived as an archaic remnant of ancient regimes antithetical to authentic national life. Dividing them\, definitionally\, is the ‘horizontal comradeship’ of nationalism against the hierarchal order of various royalisms. Nonetheless\, in many parts of the Asian continent\, there were dedicated attempts—with various degrees of success—to transform the monarchy into a symbolic structure and foundation for culturally conservative nation-states\, but no less modern. In a few cases\, the myths of the monarchy and the nation-state seemed to complement each other—the nation lending a façade of modernity to the monarchy while the monarchy provided a touch of spirituality to the modern nation—and the transitions were successful. In some other cases\, the marriage of myth and modernity appeared unconvincing and the magic of royal nationhood failed to materialize in the long term. \nIt is important to take into consideration that\, in the same way that the modular nation-state was a novel invention – a pastiche of past fragments and innovations within an expanding state apparatus – of the modern era\, the monarchies that survived to rule these seemingly modernized regimes must also have been significantly transformed to meet the socio-political and cultural demands of the modern world. But where were the models? The recently published Transnational Histories of Royal Nationhood\, examines significant institutional learning across dynasties\, mostly within Europe. But if modern monarchies of Asia were also inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries\, we must note that they were idiosyncratically framed to different notions of time and articulations of subjecthood/citizenship. And if Asian sovereigns were less entwined than their European counterparts\, so perhaps was learning less shared\, or was it? \nThe modern monarchies drew legitimacy from the historical and spiritual narrative of having predated the modern nation and being the essence of the to be produced cultural homogeneity that would be the nation-state fashioned in royal cloth; or legitimacy flowed from being the arbiter of cultural pluralism. In many cases it was the narrative of the archaic monarchy that provided a sense of history for the nation-state. It seemed as though there had always been a royal sovereign and therefore\, it would have been more plausible that there had always been the nation-state waiting to mature under the sovereign’s watch. While nationalists wanted a stilted birth forced\, monarchists wanted ordered incubation and hatching. The strategies and processes of marrying these two inventions of the modern era to make convincing political entities that are both modern and archaic\, both spiritual and scientific\, both traditional and innovative at the same time\, is undoubtedly much more than a bit intriguing. \nBuilding on the pioneering work of Transnational Histories of Royal Nationhood\, but focusing on the Asian histories of royal nationhood from a range of methodological starting points\, this workshop seeks to explore the following questions: What were the reasons behind the seeming success of some regimes in the transition from archaic to modern of the royal nation? How was the question of the locus of sovereignty resolved in the face of popular claims? How could the apparent failures of other royalist regimes in Asia be understood in the context of the modern and contemporary eras and were those failures observed and applied as lessons by the survivors? Were there institutional borrowings that suggest a robust global history? How did the successful monarchies maneuver through turbulent periods of external political influence—both the height of colonialism in the 19th century and the Cold War of the mid-to- late-20th century? Does the existence or prior existence of a monarchy impact a society’s ability to liberally democratize or to revolutionize into the norms of the socialist bloc? What is the future for the modern monarchies that remain in this day and age\, and what are the prospects for restoration?
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/divine-transcendent-rulers-of-imagined-communities-the-rise-and-fall-of-royal-nationhood-in-asia/
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181204T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181207T170000
DTSTAMP:20201021T191549Z
CREATED:20201021T191549Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201021T191549Z
UID:10000659-1543910400-1544202000@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:Eurasia’s Islamic Socialist Ecumene
DESCRIPTION:Workshop Directors\nEren Tasar\nAssistant Professor\, History\, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\netasar@email.unc.edu \nMustafa Tuna\nAssociate Professor\, Slavic & Eurasian Studies\, Duke University\nmustafa.tuna@duke.edu \nCall for Workshop Papers\nFor much of the twentieth century\, Muslim intellectuals in virtually all the countries of Eurasia engaged with socialism as a utopian vision of progress and liberation for Muslim peoples. A vast constellation of figures promoted some form of socialism as a vehicle for national liberation and decolonization\, from members of the ‘ulama sympathetic to socialism’s egalitarian tenets; to secular intellectuals educated in Westernized universities; to atheist communists who retained some connection to a sense of Muslimness (often through their ethnic affiliation); to (eventually) authoritarian dictators such as Muammar al-Gaddafi who adopted brands of socialism as their official ideology. These figures have been studied in their national contexts\, and the links between socialist movements in Muslim countries and the Soviet Communist Party have similarly been explored in some depth. At no point\, however\, have Muslim socialists been identified as a transnational network (or collection of networks). This workshop proposes to interrogate Islamic socialists as an intellectual community-albeit a fluid one-spanning the Eurasian continent from Turkey to China and from Russia to India. It also suggests that the religious component of being Muslim and socialist needs to be taken seriously\, and that\, therefore\, relationships\, gatherings\, and exchanges of ideas between Islamic socialists constitute an InterAsian religious network of varying scope depending on the decade in question. \nTo account for the tremendous diversity of Muslim figures embracing or experimenting with socialist ideas\, and to acknowledge the lack of mobility experienced by Muslim socialists living in authoritarian (and especially communist) countries\, this workshop proposes the idea of an Islamic socialist intellectual ecumene\, which can be analyzed in terms of three categories: networks of people\, the flow of ideas\, and the circulation of texts. Unlike a network\, the concept of an ecumene allows for the inclusion of both connections and convergences; to analyze not only the relationships between socialists across time periods and different Muslim cultures\, but also to compare the engagement with socialism in areas geographically distant from one another. \nBy soliciting contributions from scholars engaged with historical figures representing a range of Muslim communities across a broad spectrum of the last century\, this workshop aims to illustrate the Eurasian dimensions of Muslim intellectual engagement with socialism\, and to thereby transcend the limitations imposed by nationalist and Moscow-centric historiographical approaches. The workshop organizers are open to a wide variety of submissions\, including those related to the following topics: \n\nTransnational socialist conferences\, such as the Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East (1920)\nSocialist movements formed in opposition to established Communist Parties in Muslim countries\, such as the Socialist Society of the Iranian Masses (1948)\nSocialist interpretations of fiqh\nThe role of socialism in anticolonial nationalist movements\nThe relationship between communist movements and the ‘ulama\, especially in the early\, formative decades of communism (the 1920s in the USSR and the 1950s in China)\nAutobiographies of prominent socialist intellectuals in Muslim countries\nPeriodical literature targeting the reading public in Muslim countries
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/eurasias-islamic-socialist-ecumene/
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181204T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181207T170000
DTSTAMP:20201022T193719Z
CREATED:20201022T193425Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201022T193719Z
UID:10000660-1543910400-1544202000@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:Sacred Forests and Political Ecology: Cosmological Properties and Environmentality
DESCRIPTION:Workshop Directors\nBixia Chen\nAssistant Professor\, Agricultural Science\, University of the Ryukyus\nchenbx@agr.u-ryukyu.ac.jp \nChristopher Coggins\nProfessor\, Geography/Asian Studies\, Bard College at Simon’s Rock\nccoggins@simons-rock.edu \nCall for Workshop Papers\nThis workshop analyzes the political ecology of sacred forests in East\, South\, and Southeast Asia\, convening scholars engaged in field and archival research on the relationship between forests and the production of sacred space. Working within the theme of environmental humanities in Asia\, we examine the vast geographic range of sacred groves in these regions in light of the diversity of cosmologies\, ecologies\, traditional local resource management practices\, and environmental governance systems developed during the pre-colonial\, colonial and post-colonial periods. Sacred forests are typically common property resources (aka common pool resources) ascribed with qualities of sacrality and inviolability due to their association with sources of transcendent authority. Such authority may be derived from large-scale\, canonical\, ecclesiastical religions; from local\, animistic\, indigenous religions; or from a combination of both. The spiritual beliefs governing sacred landscapes\, in conjunction with the rituals that instantiate them\, tend to change over time\, be inscribed or appropriated by state interests\, and mediate between local\, regional\, and national power. Western scholars and conservationists have often romanticized sacred groves as the antithesis of secular\, profane spaces of materialist productivism\, a perspective infused with Orientalism. Coincident with the globalization of environmental thought\, policy\, and everyday practice\, sacred sites have also become both foci and catalysts for the syncretism of religion and modern nature conservation\, and for the making of environmental subjects (environmentality). We present our work on sacred groves through the lens of the tripartite framework of: \n\nPlacing the Sacred Forest: dynamic ethnographic and longitudinal approaches to community and regional cosmology;\n(Re)Conceptualizing spiritual common properties: analyses of both real and imagined dichotomies between land tenure\, resource utilization patterns\, and social inclusion/exclusion within sacred groves and beyond them; and\nGoverning the Sacred Forest Commons: examinations of how state nature conservation policies involving sacred landscapes give rise to new conceptions of nature\, cultural\, sacrality\, profanity\, and thus new environmental subjects.\n\nAll three themes relate to questions recursively affecting the cosmology and propriety of sacred forests\, all of which bear on the sacred forests as small parts of larger material and ideational landscapes. What are the general geographic distributions of sacred forests in each region and how does this affect their formal and informal management? What happens to underlying cosmologies when sacred forests are reconfigured as habitat patches\, biological fragments in need of connective corridors\, or other elements of “conservation landscapes?” Given the abundance of sacred groves in East\, South\, and Southeast Asia\, what general socio-ecological conditions do they share? How do major religious traditions\, such as Hinduism\, Buddhism\, and Daoism inform sacred forest practices within and across specific regions? How are Asian sacred groves similar to\, and different from\, sacred groves and other sacred common pool resources in other parts of the world? Why are trees and groves special subjects of veneration and how is this expressed? How does the sacralization of forests and trees inform discourse on the “Anthropocene” and attendant calls for individual and collective reconceptualization and realization of new relationships between humans and non-humans\, nature and culture\, and economy and ecology? To engage with these questions\, we welcome scholars in cultural studies\, geography\, political science\, anthropology\, history\, sociology\, environmental studies\, and the humanities broadly defined.
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/sacred-forests-and-political-ecology-cosmological-properties-and-environmentality/
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181204T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181207T170000
DTSTAMP:20201022T193653Z
CREATED:20201022T193653Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201022T193653Z
UID:10000661-1543910400-1544202000@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:Sport Mega-Events as Hubs for InterAsian Interactions
DESCRIPTION:Workshop Directors\nSusan Brownell\nProfessor\, Anthropology & Archaeology\, University of Missouri-St. Louis\nsbrownell@umsl.edu \nGwang Ok\nProfessor\, Physical Education\, Chungbuk National University\, Republic of Korea\ngwangok47@gmail.com \nCall for Workshop Papers\nBetween 2018 and 2022\, three consecutive Olympics will take place in East Asia: the PyeongChang Winter Olympics (2018)\, Tokyo Summer Olympics (2020)\, and Beijing-Zhangjiakou Winter Olympics (2022). In the 122-year history of the Olympic Games\, this will be the first time that multiple installments will be held consecutively in one world region outside the cultural West. Further\, the 2022 FIFA World Cup will be held in Qatar\, only the second hosting of this event in Asia (after the 2002 Japan/Korea contest). The Asian Games are the world’s largest regional games\, including many more sports disciplines than the Olympic Games and nearly as many athletes. After the 2018 games in Jakarta\, the next two will be in East Asia: Hangzhou (2022) and Nagoya (2026). Pundits have wondered whether the geographic shift of mega-events indicates the decline of the West and the rise of Asia. Will the Asian events strengthen intra-regional solidarity\, or do Asian actors primarily strive to form relationships with Western counterparts? Does East Asia occupy a discrete role in Asia as a whole? \nScholars have argued that global mega-events (Olympic Games\, FIFA Soccer World Cups\, World Expos) operate as hubs of global flows of capital\, people\, knowledge\, and technology\, and perform important ritual and symbolic functions. However\, this general insight remains to be researched at a more concrete level. Furthermore\, although there has been a growing body of literature on sports\, Olympic Games\, and Asian Games in Asia in recent years\, few scholars have specifically focused on the way in which sports and sport mega-events serve as a platform for elite networking and the strengthening of regional social and cultural interconnections. Stefan Huebner’s focus on mega-events in the formation of Asian identity in Pan-Asian Sports and the Emergence of Modern Asia\, 1913-1974 (2016) pursued what is still a novel approach to understanding the construction of “Asia.” As he documented there\, official efforts to craft a pan-Asian identity run into countercurrents: sporting events are just as likely to inflame nationalist rivalries\, and different sporting legacies of colonialism and imperialism mark off different sub-regional identities (E.g.\, cricket in South Asia\, baseball in East Asia) and different preferences for mega-events (E.g. India’s hosting of the 2010 Commonwealth Games and South Asian hosting of the Cricket World Cup versus the East Asian hosting of Olympic Games or Qatar’s hosting of the Soccer World Cup). Further\, “national” sports such as kabbadi (India)\, wushu (China)\, or karate (Japan) serve to reinforce national identities and compete with each other for inclusion in the mega-event programs. \nThe proposed panel will be innovative in that it will focus on the question of whether mega-events strengthen regional Asian networks that serve as an infrastructure facilitating the emergence of a stronger Asian identity – which might not yet be evident. It will analyze how these mega-events form a multi-layered system of “hard” and “soft” infrastructures including construction mega-projects\, technology\, and finance\, but also the “transfer of knowledge” (the organized process by which know-how is transferred from one event to the next)\, cultural borrowing\, social networking\, and the sharing of emotions. It will provide an open-ended forum for identifying all of the different types of connections that Asian sport mega-events generate. At the same time\, it will identify the obstacles that might obstruct potential connections\, such as nationalist sentiments\, legal limits on the mobility of people and capital\, wealth disparities between nations and social classes\, or hierarchies within elites and sport organizations. By pulling together a picture of the networks that historically coalesced around Asian sport mega-events – and are now coalescing around the upcoming events – this panel will produce a larger picture of globalization and Asia’s position in it.
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/sport-mega-events-as-hubs-for-interasian-interactions/
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181204T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181207T170000
DTSTAMP:20201026T162934Z
CREATED:20201026T162934Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201026T162934Z
UID:10000662-1543910400-1544202000@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:States of Fortification: Connecting Asia through Technologies of Food and Health
DESCRIPTION:Workshop Directors\nMelissa L. Caldwell\nProfessor\, Anthropology\, University of California\, Santa Cruz\nlissa@ucsc.edu \nIzumi Nakayama\nResearch Officer & Honorary Assistant Professor\, Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences\, The University of Hong Kong\nnakayama@hku.hk \nCall for Workshop Papers\nThis workshop will focus on how technological interventions in food and health have informed projects of modernity\, sovereignty\, empire building\, and subjectivity across Asia\, with particular attention to the temporal and geopolitical modalities that have shaped and been shaped by these phenomena. Central to the workshop will be considering how “Asia” and its regions might be retheorized and remapped – as places\, concepts\, or constellations of networks – through food technologies. We anticipate pursuing three interrelated themes. First\, what are the ways in which efforts to create and protect strong nation-states and subjects have harnessed technology to feed\, nourish\, and fortify the bodies and minds of the subjects who have constructed those nation-states? Second\, how have individual and state-level concerns with food and health productively generated new opportunities for technological innovation\, experimentation\, and intervention that have alternately connected and disconnected people and communities throughout this region? Third\, how does critical attention to the intersection of food\, health\, and technology provide new perspectives for scholarly research design\, analysis\, and collaboration across the social sciences and humanities? \nSocieties in Asia have been\, and continue to be\, shaped by historical experiences with food. Across this geopolitical region there has long been a mutual entanglement of food\, health\, and technology that has simultaneously connected and disconnected people\, their bodies\, their histories\, and the social worlds in which they live. For instance\, new methods to improve and ensure productivity\, efficiency\, quality\, and safety across all stages of the food system from production and distribution to consumption and disposal often foregrounded technological innovations not only for ensuring greater stability in food supplies\, but also for building stronger and healthier citizens\, societies\, and states. New chemical and mechanical technologies for agricultural production\, manufacturing\, and food preservation and storage enabled foods and accompanying values and philosophies to circulate through longer supply chains and into new networks\, thereby connecting people who were otherwise culinarily\, culturally\, and geographically distinct. At the same time\, the monopolization of raw materials such as salt\, sugar\, grains\, and tea by imperial powers distorted these circulations and established boundaries within communities. One key moment in the early 20th century was the introduction of Western nutritional knowledge that prompted Asian societies to grapple with fundamental challenges to “traditional knowledge” about health\, family rituals\, and household provisioning practices. \nToday these challenges continue\, as many Asian societies try to recover and return to “traditional” food practices such as pre-Western nutritional precepts\, rural farming\, native organics philosophies\, and other food-centered lifestyles. More recently\, technological advances from the digital and artistic worlds have enabled new modes of social and corporeal interactivity\, such as with social media that facilitate new relationalities at multiple scales\, wearable technologies that allow access into people’s most intimate\, bodily spaces\, or robots and artificial intelligence programs that replace the humans who labor as pickers\, processors\, cooks and chefs\, and health care professionals. We invite empirically rich\, historically sensitive\, and methodologically grounded projects that will shed light on the ways in which food and health technologies have been formative to projects of nation-state building and separation across Asia. We are especially interested in curating contributions representing different historical periods\, regions\, and scholarly disciplines that\, when put in collaborative conversation at the workshop\, will both facilitate greater understanding of the technological\, political\, and cultural processes that have inspired different modes of governance\, subjectivity\, personhood\, and reveal the dynamics by which modalities of cultural and regional sameness\, distinction\, convergence\, and divergence underlie constructions of “Asia.”
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/states-of-fortification-connecting-asia-through-technologies-of-food-and-health/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181204T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181207T170000
DTSTAMP:20201026T163141Z
CREATED:20201026T163141Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201026T163141Z
UID:10000663-1543910400-1544202000@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:The Netware of the New Asian Economy under the Industrial Revolution 4.0
DESCRIPTION:Workshop Directors\nSalvatore Babones\nAssociate Professor\, Sociology\, University of Sydney\nsbabones@sydney.edu.au \nVinh Duc Nguyen\nVice-Director\, Institute of Sociology\, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences\nnguyenducvinh@ios.org.vn \nCall for Workshop Papers\nSocial networks\, the sharing economy\, and the internet of things are all forms of netware: networks in which value is generated by bringing people and things together (consumers\, providers\, cars\, bicycles\, payment systems\, etc.). These digital networks are driving forward a “Fourth Industrial Revolution” or “Industrial Revolution 4.0.” The fourth industrial revolution builds on the electronics revolution (IR3.0) to connect people and things in digital networks. The electronics and computer hardware value chains of IR3.0 were central to the economic development of East Asia\, though the region largely missed out on the computer software boom that represented the maturity of this wave of innovation. Now we are seeing the emergence of a new kind of technology value chain for what might be called “netware” — platforms that bring people and things together to create value through integration. Netware is at the heart of IR4.0 and is ripe for sociological\, political\, and political-economic study. It has the potential to change not just business practice\, but the structure of society itself. \nThe new netware economy is even more focused on the Asia-Pacific region than was the hardware economy of IR3.0\, with major value chains seemingly concentrated either on the west coast of the United States or on the east coast of China. The position of China in the netware economy is particularly interesting because it is home both to a large\, semi-closed internet and to a large\, very open maker hub. Both of these Chinese networks are focal points for pan-Pacific production networks\, but neither is exclusively Chinese. The firewalled Chinese internet may be to some extent a walled garden\, but mobile access to it is dominated by Android and Apple operating systems and app stores. The world’s maker hub may be concentrated in southeastern China\, but it uses components from across Asia and attracts participants from around the world. Thus although China and California loom large in the netware economy\, the tentacles of the netware economy are especially thick in advanced technology hubs like Japan\, South Korea\, and Taiwan\, and they are increasingly reaching out to new assembly sites like Vietnam\, Indonesia\, and India. Success in netware is likely to be crucial for any of these countries (Chine included) if they hope to climb Asia-Pacific value chains like the Japan\, the Asian tigers\, or indeed China itself. \nWe invite contributions on all aspects of the Asia-Pacific netware economy: value chains\, production networks\, social networks\, creative commons\, open source software\, open source hardware\, maker culture\, hardware accelerators\, hackathons\, venture capital\, digital entrepreneurship\, blockchain\, fintech\, the sharing economy\, the internet of things\, and similar topics that we may not have heard of (yet). Given the emerging nature of this topic\, we welcome conceptual contributions as well as papers based on empirical data. We are especially interested in contributions from scholars who are at an early stage in their research processes.
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/the-netware-of-the-new-asian-economy-under-the-industrial-revolution-4-0/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181207T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181207T170000
DTSTAMP:20200930T165343Z
CREATED:20200930T165343Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200930T165343Z
UID:10000621-1544176800-1544202000@www.ssrc.org
SUMMARY:Climate Change Working Group Meeting 2018
DESCRIPTION:The working group on climate change seeks to make the study of climate change a distinct and recognized area of study in the social sciences. Its steering committee convened to discuss several meetings and events of the past year\, as well as new initiatives.
URL:https://www.ssrc.org/events/climate-change-working-group-meeting-2018/
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