CALL FOR ABSTRACTS - In-Person Workshop ZiF Bielefeld - 25-26 September 2023
Beyond Alternatives: Decentring Knowledge in Asia
Noorman Abdullah, Kelvin Low, Thomas Stodulka, and Ferdiansyah Thajib
This workshop addresses current debates on the tensions between critical and decolonial pedagogies as allied yet diversely positioned attempts of producing ‘alternative’ knowledge. It also attempts to engage with these appraisals critically in relation to the broader concerns revolving around knowledge production and circulation, and its concomitant discourses, practices and cultures. The proliferation of such initiatives and interventions in learning within the region has a target of personal and large-scale transformation within different key domains of life: from issues of economic, environmental, and social justice, from structural inequality to local empowerment, pedagogic resistance, or religious reformation movements. What does ‘alternative’ mean, to whom, and in what temporal and situational context? What are the limits and dilemmas of alternative discourses that can be problematised? How can we extend knowledge production, circulation, and learning in the name of ‘good’ social science? More recently, scholars have engaged in making sense of and theorising processes of ‘silencing’ (Alatas, 2018) as a method and how they have been institutionalised in academic settings through publications, research, and teaching.
Further Information can be found here.
Please submit an abstract of approximately 400 words (with title, author contact, and 5-6 keywords) by 23 July 2023 to the workshop convenors:
Noorman Abdullah (socnooa@nus.edu.sg)
Kelvin Low (kelvinlow@nus.edu.sg)
Thomas Stodulka (Thomas.Stodulka@fu-berlin.de)
Ferdiansyah Thajib (ferdi.thajib@fau.de)
EMBODIED, EMOTIONAL AND SENSORIAL KNOWLEDGE: PERSPECTIVES FROM ASIA (16./17. February 2023)
NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE SHAW FOUNDATION BUILDING, AS7, SEMINAR ROOM B (#01-17) FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Analytical and comparative endeavours of elucidating how everyday life and its variegated avenues are mediated through the senses and the body have rarely been pursued in non-Western academic scholarship. Since this includes issues of morality, foodways, power relations, religious beliefs, and class dynamics, we ask what such neglect says vis-à-vis the production of knowledge in disciplinary fields such as sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, architecture and so forth?
The Workshop Program Booklet is downloadable from here.
Izeki, Tadahisa. 2022. "Problems of Translating Culture-Bound Terms: Taking “Öffentlichkeit” and “Seken” as Examples." Shaping Asia Working Paper n. 2, Bielefeld University and Heidelberg University. Downloadable from here.
Adambussinova, Zarina; Aliia Maralbaeva; Chiara Pierobon; and Aijan Sharshenova. 2022. "Academic Life in Central Asia during Covid-19: Challenges and Opportunities." Shaping Asia Working Paper n. 1, Bielefeld University and Heidelberg University. Downloadable from here.
Shaping Asia Network quarterly newsletter, December 2021. Downloadable from here.
The Shaping Asia - Heritage lecture series continues with three more talks:
- Prof. Dr. Christiane Brosius (Universität Heidelberg) on the 21. January 2022: 'Building Back Stronger'? Robustness, Resilience and Regeneration in Post-Earthquake Heritage Making in Nepal.
- Dr. Çiçek Ilengiz (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen) on the 27. January 2022: Energetic Inheritance: Sensing the Heritage of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi (1207-1273).
- Dr. Zarina Adambussinova (American University of Central Asia in Bishkek) on the 3. February 2022: Dissonance in Heritage: The City Museum of Kökshetau in Peripheral Post-Soviet Kazakhstan.
For more information, visit the series' webpage.
Within the Understanding Asia Transnational Care colloquium series, Dr. Megha Amrith (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany) offers a lecture titled The Ends of Transnational Care: Aspirations of Ageing Migrant Domestic Workers.
Date and time are 19. Jan. 2022, 4 p.m. c.t.
For more information, visit the series' webpage.
Prof. Dr. Antje Missbach (Bielefeld University) and Prof. Dr. Heike Drotbohm (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) have been awarded a grant for their project Migration und Im/Mobilität im Globalen Süden in Zeiten einer Pandemie (2021–2024). The project is funded by the German Research Foundation. Visit the project's webpage for more information.
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Pfeffer, Prof. Dr. Janina Steinert (Technical University of Munich) and Prof. Dr. Sahana Udupa (LMU Munich) lunched a project on online misogyny: Understanding, Detecting, and Mitigating Online Misogyny Against Politically Active Women in Germany, India, and Brazil (2022–2026). The project, funded by the Bavarian Institute for Digital Transformation, will examine online misogyny and gender-based harassment across Germany, India, and Brazil using ethnography, survey, and computational methods.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Stodulka, together with Florin Cristea (Freie Universität Berlin), will be working on a project titled Afflicted Minds–‘Madness’, Morality and Emotions in Rural Bali (2022–2024). The project is funded by the German Research Foundation.
Focusing on the islands of Bali (Florin Cristea) and Timor and Timor-Leste (Thomas Stodulka) in Indonesia, the project contributes to current debates on mental health experiences. Whereas Bali has established itself as a hub for international cooperations and transnational mental health experts, the island of Timor contrasts through almost exclusive local healingscapes. Based on professional networks already initiated during previous and exploratory fieldwork, this project is well connected to the local and international institutions working on mental health and illness on the two islands. It investigates the illness experiences associated with severe psychiatric disorders as intertwined moral, cognitive, and emotional processes. This analytic link promises to provide an in-depth description of how global knowledge flows influence personal and social illness trajectories and outcomes beyond the Global North, by methodologically particularlizing the diverse Balinese and Timorese therapeutic landscapes.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Stodulka and other colleagues at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin have launched a project titled Learning for Democracy from Interfaith Initiatives: Civic Education, Democracy, and Religion. It is funded by Berlin University Alliance Global Engagement for the period 2020-2021. Their official website launch is February 2022 and can be reached via this link.
In the upcoming winter term 2021/2022, the Shaping Asia network organises a lecture series titled Shaping Asia: Heritage. The invited speakers are:
- Dr. Felix Girke (Universität Konstanz) on 5. November 2021.
- Prof. Dr. Christoph Brumann (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle) on the 2. December 2021.
- Prof. Dr. Christiane Brosius (Universität Heidelberg) on the 21. January 2022.
- Dr. Çiçek Ilengiz (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen) on the 27. January 2022.
- Dr. Zarina Adambussinova (American University of Central Asia in Bishkek) on the 3. February 2022.
Please save the dates for now. More information will soon follow.
Within the colloquium series Understanding Asia: Transnational Care four scholars will deliver talks.
- Dr. Victoria Kumala Satki (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen) on 27. October 2021.
- Prof. Dr. Judith Schlehe (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg) on 24. November 2021.
- Prof. Dr. Bo Kyeong Seo (Yonsei University, South Korea) on 09. December 2021.
- Dr. Megha Amrith (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany) on 19. January 2022.
For the programme and registration, please consult their website.
End of September 2022, Kathmandu
International Workshop within the "Knowledge Production and Circulation" Network
Coordinators: Prof. Dr. Dhruv Raina and Prof. Dr. Joachim Kurtz.
18-19 February 2022, Singapore
International Workshop within the "Knowledge Production and Circulation" Network
Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Kelvin Low.
17-18 February 2022, Singapore
International Workshop within the "Knowledge Production and Circulation" Network
Coordinator: Dr. Noorman Abdullah.