Workshop Schedule - De-centering Academia: InterAsian Perspectives
Workshop on Friday, September 13 2024 at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo
The workshop schedule for "De-centering Academia: InterAsian Perspectives" is now available here.
‘De-centering academia? – InterAsian Perspectives’
This workshop addresses the recent dynamics in higher education in Asia, under the conditions of pronounced power asymmetries, but also of processes of ‘de-centering’ - in the sense of challenging the Western dominance in this field. Today’s global landscape of higher education is driven by neo-liberal policies and by the enhanced positional competition (Bourdieu) between countries, universities, academic staff, and students. The unequal nature of academia is especially observable in the scope of marketization and in different forms of classifying, ranking, and measuring. It is also characterized by cultural asymmetries, for instance by the dominance of the English language in academic expression: English-speaking journals located in the West continue to be most influential in all academic fields; they tend to privilege certain reservoirs of knowledge as well as specific forms of knowledge transmission.
At the same time, at least two processes of de-centering take place:
First, in terms of an emergence of new centers of higher education outside of the Western hemisphere and in a reversal of academic migrations - of faculties and students - towards new destinations in Asia. Drawing upon the recent critical assessments of the seemingly durable inequalities in higher education, we wish to establish what kind of change the perspectival shift to universities outside of the Western region and to new sites of knowledge has already brought about. On this basis, the workshop will critically link the constellations of power and authority to knowledge creation and dissemination, under the shifting coordinates.
Second, in terms of the recent debates on legitimacy and validity of knowledge. Modernity has allotted the center stage to canonised academic knowledge that is strongly influenced by Western positions. Today, more and more actors call for a re-assessment of what is silenced and why certain forms of knowledge have acquired power of definition over long periods of time. Currently, scholars engage in decolonising dominant academic discourses in a search of ‘alternative’ (Alatas) and ‘discrepant’ (Said) knowledge and in questioning the Western domination of canons in academia (Alatas and Sinha). These processes are observable in the influx of new ideas created in the fields of gender studies and new race theory, and in preoccupations with new avenues in the academic teaching and learning.
The workshop aims at exploring these interrelated fields by deploying comparative perspectives on different Asian regions, and by inquiring into Asian connectivities and forms of cooperation. It also hopes to draw upon European experiences and transregional interactions.
It is expected that the Japanese and German scholarship can contribute new perspectives to these debates because both countries look back at an intensive involvement throughout history in shaping the academic constellations, e.g. in terms of their intellectual contributions. Yet, both countries are currently not at the peak of the global academic hierarchies – which allows for critical but constructive assessments.
The workshop is being held on-site, and the capacity has already been reached.
Workshop Schedule - Shaping Asia through Knowledge Circuits
In-person Workshop ZiF Bielefeld 27-29 September 2023
Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka
The workshop schedule for "Shaping Asia through Knowledge Circuits" is now available here.
Most of our knowledge about the world is co-produced. This workshop focuses on the knowledges produced collectively and collaboratively in and about Asia historically, and contemporaneously. We conceive of ‘knowledge’ in plural as the workshop will inquire into different forms of knowledge. On one hand, the workshop is interested in the manifold forms of everyday and practical knowledge that is produced, circulated, and disseminated among diverse actors such as trading communities, activists, art performers, farmers, and others. In some instances, the involved actors may not conceive of their sens pratique as ‘knowledge’; in other instances, they might re-value and newly deploy certain forms of knowledge in movements aimed at highlighting ‘alternative’ (Alatas) or ‘discrepant knowledge’(Said). On the other hand, the workshop is interested in the many processes involved in the canonisation of knowledge, including academic canonisation, and the modalities of forging and contesting ‘valid’ knowledge reservoirs.
Workshop Schedule - Beyond Alternatives: Decentring Knowledge in Asia
In-Person Workshop ZiF Bielefeld 25-26 September 2023
Noorman Abdullah, Kelvin Low, Thomas Stodulka, and Ferdiansyah Thajib
The workshop schedule for "Beyond Alternatives: Decentring Knowledge in Asia" is now available here.
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.
Call for abstracts: In-person Workshop ZiF Bielefeld 27-29 September 2023
Shaping Asia through Knowledge Circuits
Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka
Most of our knowledge about the world is co-produced. This workshop focuses on the knowledges produced collectively and collaboratively in and about Asia historically, and contemporaneously. We conceive of ‘knowledge’ in plural as the workshop will inquire into different forms of knowledge. On one hand, the workshop is interested in the manifold forms of everyday and practical knowledge that is produced, circulated, and disseminated among diverse actors such as trading communities, activists, art performers, farmers, and others. In some instances, the involved actors may not conceive of their sens pratique as ‘knowledge’; in other instances, they might re-value and newly deploy certain forms of knowledge in movements aimed at highlighting ‘alternative’ (Alatas) or ‘discrepant knowledge’(Said). On the other hand, the workshop is interested in the many processes involved in the canonisation of knowledge, including academic canonisation, and the modalities of forging and contesting ‘valid’ knowledge reservoirs.
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 convenor:
Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka (joanna.pfaff@uni-bielefeld.de)
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.