The fourth installment of Asia-Pacific Worlds in Motion, an interdisciplinary graduate conference, will continue the exploration of the regional and global dynamics of Asia-Pacific migrations. This year’s theme details the ways that migration—its contexts, processes, and impacts—oscillates between 'fixities' and ‘fluidities’. While some migrants cross borders for work, marriage, and/or education, others are forcibly displaced. Still others are left behind, or choose to stay. In and through these interlocking dynamics, identities are re-shaped, new mobilities are constructed, and connections are forged or disrupted. The conference’s broad themes reflect these dimensions, foregrounding the diverse, evolving, and emergent ways in which ‘fixities’ and ‘fluidities’ shape migration today.
This two-day conference welcomes graduate students from all disciplines pursuing research on Asia-Pacific migrations. Partial subsidies (meals and accommodation) will be available for participating students. In addition, exemplary conference papers may be compiled and developed for publication in a special volume.
Through this conference, we hope to provide an engaging space for peer collaboration and mentorship among graduate students, early-career researchers, and senior scholars. We welcome original theoretical and empirical studies on Asia-Pacific migrations across different scales, sites, and subjects, and from a range of social, cultural, political, and economic perspectives.
Key issues of this conference include, but are not limited to:
I. Identities
- Gender, race, ethnicity, class and ‘difference’
- Citizenship, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism
- Belonging and integration
- Intergenerationality, children, and youth
II. Mobilities
- Labour and work
- Social mobility, capital accumulation, and mobility projects
- Development and migration policy
- Mobility/immobility
III. Connectivities
- Cities, diversity and transnational urbanism
- Transnational (dis)connections, networks and kinship ties
- Grassroots politics and social movements
- Diaspora and transnational communities
Keynote Speakers
Adrian Bailey, Professor, School of Geography, University of Leeds & Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University
Daniel Hiebert, Professor, Department of Geography & Co-Director, Metropolis British Columbia, University of British Columbia
Nina Glick Schiller, Professor, Department of Social Anthropology & Director, Research Institute of Cosmopolitan Cultures, University of Manchester
Submission deadline: 25 October 2011
· One-page abstract (max. 300 words)
· One-page CV with contact information and institutional affiliation
Submit to: apwim4@gmail.com
Copy to: Cheng Yi’En, chengyien@nus.edu.sg and Liberty Chee, libertychee@nus.edu.sg
For more information, email apwim4@gmail.com
or visit asiapacificworldsinmotion.wordpress.com