Presentation Type: Panel Presentation
Transgressing the Border between Academics and Politics: The CIA in the MIT Indonesia Project and Beyond
In the early 1950s, Boston briefly became an important center for the study of Indonesia. The CIA and affiliated foundation funded programs at MIT and the concentration of graduate students seeking topics, relevance, fame, and financial support at Harvard came together resulting in one of the most important starting points for Indonesian studies in the …
Visual Representations of the Persistent Cold War in the Korean Peninsula
The Korean Peninsula is a dormant volcanic locus where a hot war, the Korean War was not only waged, but its truce in 1953 also remained in a form of a cold war between the two divided Koreas in the twenty first century even after the perestroika in the 1980s.Our panel pays attention to the …
Japan and the Socialist Bloc During the Cold War: Translating Cultures
As a member of the capitalist sphere during the Cold War, Japan did not have many governmental exchanges with the socialist world. Nevertheless, leftist intellectuals visited various socialist regions, interacted with the local intellectuals and wrote about their experiences. As a result, literary works and other cultural products traveled between languages and cultures, giving birth …
Alienation From Policy Processes Across Asia
The papers in this panel focuses on alienation from policy processes. By alienation, we indicate groups and constituencies that feel unrepresented by policy-makers or detached from policy formations. We ask if this alienation is necessarily linked to rising nationalism and an inflated perception of risk; we seek inspiration from small-scale markets in Cambodia, Chinese musical …
Affective Politics on the Rise: The Emotional Turn in Studying Politics in Asia – The Case of China and India
In the last few years, a renewal of academic interest in affect (the more embodied and less conscious dimension of the human feeling) and emotion (feelings which are more conscious and anchored by language and meaning) is sweeping through all social science disciplines (Clough and Halley, 2007). In political studies, affects and emotions are considered …
NGO, Network and Activism in China
This panel sheds light on how community-based activists organise their activities in contemporary China that falls in the dichotomy of the authoritarian state and civil society. To move beyond this Eurocentric imagination on the political dynamics of collective action, the three papers map out the making of the network in activist programs for migrant workers, …
City Life in Nineteenth Century Beijing
The nineteenth century was a time of tremendous change throughout the Qing empire. The local history of its capital city, Beijing, can be read as an assortment of stories – from crime and surveillance to spectacle and sensation, from imperial presence and absence to evolving forms of popular worship and entertainment. Utilizing sources ranging from …
Ambition, Naked, Muted, and Mediated: Exploring Young Adult Aspirations in the Fast-changing Global South
Studies of developing Asia show that opportunities have emerged alongside dramatic economic changes but, as with many globalising processes, these have come with psychic, social and environmental costs. It is a truism that avenues for self and economic transformation are not available to everyone. In this atmosphere where aspirations emerge but their actualisations are limited …
Everyday Politics in Maoist China
In Maoist China, from the 1950s to the 1970s, the political found expression in everyday life in a variety of ways. From the language used in public and private discourse, to relations between family members, work routines, and economic activity at the village and household level, Maoist ideology touched nearly every facet of daily life. …
New Implications of Land Commodification in China’s Local Development
Land’s public ownership is one of CCP’s socialist ideological strongholds in an otherwise vigorous embrace of the market. Nevertheless, China has developed a system whereby although this principle is maintained, land can be marketed and mortgaged. State and non-state actors have largely taken advantage from land as an economic and financial asset, which have thus …