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I I A S N E W S L E T T E R # 4 7 S p r i n g 0 0 8
A N N O U N C E M E N T S
Experiences, ideologies
and politics: Conference on
return migration in Asia
31 July – 1 August
National University of Singapore,
Singapore
Despite the burgeoning literature on
a wide range of transnational migra-
tory flows in Asia, research on “return”
remains scarce. Return migration is not
just a form of reverse flow; “return” is
a highly emotive and contested notion.
Why, for example, is the Nikkeijins’ jour-
ney from Latin America to Japan called
“return” although for most of them Japan
is but a foreign country? Why are the gov-
ernments of China, India, the Philippines
and Singapore, to name a few, actively
encouraging “return” which supposedly
becomes less relevant due to globalisa-
tion and circular migration? How should
we understand the recent proliferation
of bilateral “readmission agreements”
between migrant-sending and migrant-
receiving countries aimed at enforcing
return?
“Return” is both emotional and politi-
cal because it is regarded as at once an
unquestionable right and an uncontest-
able duty, and is by definition bound to
such primordial notions as “home,”
“roots,” and “belonging.” In this work-
shop, we attempt to problematise these
conventional understandings and open
up the concept of “return” as a strategic
moment of redefining economic, social
and political relations in contemporary
Asia:
Firstly, at the individual level, return con-
stitutes a defining moment in a migrant’s
life cycle and social relations. Return as an
important life experience provides a pow-
erful lens for analyzing how individuals
interact with local societies, particularly
in terms of social stratification, gender
relations, family ideologies and identity,
within a transnational context.
Secondly, return (re)defines states’ rela-
tions to mobile citizens and mobile for-
eigners. The admission of unskilled for-
eign workers in Asia is typically based on
the assumption that the migrants would
return. Indeed, deportation programs,
often legitimated as a duty of return, have
been crucial for the formation of migra-
tion policies in several Asian countries in
the last decade.
Thirdly, return redefines Asia’s relations
with the world. Historically, large-scale
return migrations are always related to
changes in international relations. The
migration of South Asians back to the
subcontinent following independence
in 1947, Chinese descendants in South-
east Asia to the newly founded PRC in the
1950s and 1960s, and more recently, Viet
kieu to socialist Vietnam, are just a few
examples. Today, in most parts of Asia,
return is an enterprising project instead
of an exercise due to nostalgia. Return-
ing to China or India from the West, for
example, is perceived as a “return to the
future”—to be ahead of global business
and technology curves. Returnees are
significant because the action of return
reinforces allegiance and loyalty, yet the
returnees are expected to rejuvenate
Announcements
and even revolutionalise the old. Return
energizes nationalism in the globalizing
world.
In sum, return destabilizes and alters
some social relations, and at the same
time serves to valorise and reinforce oth-
ers. Return is as much an experience as
a discourse. We thus see return as part
of the project of remaking order in an
increasingly mobile, open and inter-con-
nected Asia.
The following are the themes of the con-
ference:
1. The process and experiences of
return migrations that complicate
the notion of “return” (e.g. return as
a transitory phase leading to a fur-
ther migratory project, and return as
a continuation of mobility by mov-
ing to a major city instead of home
village in the country of origin);
2. The social and political production of
return migrations (e.g. ethno-nation-
alism in South Korea and Japan that
encourages the return of ethnic Kore-
ans and Japanese from overseas,
and the 1997 financial crises that
triggered large scale expulsions of
migrant workers in Southeast Asia);
3. Return and the changing economic order;
4. Return programs and policies, both
those aimed at pulling desirable return-
ees and those removing the undesired;
5. Return as a dream, a topic, a metaphor,
and an idea (for example, return as a
recurrent theme in arts, and the link-
age between the meaning of return and
the politics of return on the ground).
Convenors: XIANG Biao, Brenda
YEOH, Mika TOYOTA
For more details please contact Ms Aly-
son ROZELLS at alysonrozells@nus.edu.sg
Waters in south and
southeast Asia: interaction
of culture and religion
3rd SSEASR conference
3 – 6 June 2009
Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia
The 3rd SSEASR (South and Southeast
Asian Association for the Study of Cul-
ture and Religion) conference on Waters
in South and Southeast Asia: Interaction
of Culture and Religion, co-sponsored
as an IAHR Regional Conference, will be
held in Denpasar from 3 – 6 June, 2009.
The conference will be held in collabora-
tion with Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI) and
Universitas Hindu Indonesia (UNHI),
Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia.
More information on the website: www.
sseasr.org
Contact: Prof I Wayan Rai, PhD.,
Rector, ISI, Chair,
Organising Committee,
thirdSSEASR@hotmail.com
Amarjiva Lochan, President,SSEASR at sec-
retariat@sseasr.org
Young academic research
on contemporary Chinese
art Conference, 2009
Free University, Berlin, Germany
For attention of all those working on
aspects of contemporary Chinese art in
the academic context.
With reference to an international con-
ference, planned for the year 2009 at the
Free University in Berlin, Germany, we
are currently setting up a list of persons
around the world, who are active in the
academic research on contemporary Chi-
nese art, with a special focus on graduate
students writing their PhD in the field.
The aim of the conference is to reflect the
international state of academic research
on contemporary Chinese art and will
therefore include a focus on methodo-
logical approaches. It is designed to
provide a forum of vital exchange and to
strengthen further international coopera-
tion within this growing, yet largely unde-
fined field.
We are very much looking forward to your
answer and suggested topics in order to
conceive the ideal call for paper. Further
recommendations as well as suggestions
for the conference are warmly welcome.
Please let us know your name, institu-
tional affiliation, the title of your project,
as well as a very brief outline of your the-
sis (2-3 sentences).
Please send your information to:
birgithopfener@gmx.de
Chair of the Institute for East-Asian Art His-
tory at FU Berlin:
Prof. Jeong-Hee Lee-Kalisch
8th ICOPHIL in Manila
Conference
July 23-26, 2008
PSS Center, Quezon City, Philippines
The Eighth International Conference on
Philippine Studies (ICOPHIL) will be held
on July 23-26 and is hosted by the Philip-
pine Studies Association at the Philippine
Social Science Center on Commonwealth
Avenue in Quezon City. The Philippine
Social Science Council serves as Secre-
tariat. The ICOPHIL conference series
is held once every four years at an inter-
national hosting institution and provides
anyone working in any aspect of the study
of the Philippines the opportunity to meet
colleagues from around the world. Many
friendships have been made or renewed
and valuable collaborative projects have
been launched thanks to contacts made
at earlier ICOPHIL meetings. In 2004,
the 7th ICOPHIL was hosted by Leiden
University in The Netherlands where
almost 270 scholars presented papers
during seventy panel sessions. Looking
ahead, in 2012 the 9th ICOPHIL will be
hosted by Michigan State University in
East Lansing.
This year’s conference theme is “Philip-
pine Studies for the 21st Century: New
Meanings, Critiques, and Trajectories.”
There are plans for over eighty panels,
special sessions designated for plenary
speakers, and evening cultural events.
The organizers hope that this year’s
ICOPHIL will provide a forum for schol-
ars to reflect on Philippine realities in the
new global era. If this goal is realized, the
conference should help re-conceptualize
Philippine Studies and chart new direc-
tions for the 21st century.
The 8th ICOPHIL is also coordinated with
this year’s celebration of the Centennial
of the nearby University of the Philippines
which should add an additional festive air
to the proceedings.
Although the date for submission of pro-
posals is past, attendance is encouraged
as the conference is open to the public.
For further information about the con-
ference, registration cost and methods
of payment, housing, and other relevant
information, see the website maintained
by the Secretariat (www.pssc.org.ph/
icophil). For inquiries or further infor-
mation, please contact: Bernardita R.
Churchill, President, Philippine Studies
Association.
8th ICOPHIL Secretariat
Philippine Social Science Center
Commonwealth Ave., Diliman
1101 Quezon City
Philippines
Tel. 63-2-929-2671 or 63-2-456-1930
Fax 63-2-924-4178 or 63-2-922-9621
icophil@pssc.org.ph
Call for papers
Rethinking Urban-rural Interactions in
China’s Agricultural Development:
Beyond the Urban Bias?
9th European Conference
on Agriculture and
Rural Development in
China (ECARDC IX)
3 – 5 April 2009
University of Leeds, UK
China has witnessed remarkable eco-
nomic growth, unprecedented industri-
alisation and urbanisation, and dramatic
transformations of the urban and rural
development landscape since the initia-
tion of the market reforms three decades
ago. The impact on the rest of the world
has been huge, catching the attention of
academics, development practitioners
and policy makers worldwide. A large
and still growing body of research has
been devoted to investigate and under-
stand China’s phenomenal growth and
its broader implications, while relatively
less effort has been dedicated to critically
analyse and reflect on the many dilem-
mas of rapid growth and drastic soci-
etal change, including particularly the
ever widening urban-rural inequalities
that have in many ways overlapped with
inter- and intra-regional disparities, and
separated urban and rural societies in all
conceivable dimensions. The challenges
that this poses to the realisation of the
larger development vision – the Millen-
nium Development Goals (MDGs), at
both the global and national level – the
promotion of human well-being and the
widening of the choices and freedoms for
all Chinese citizens, have yet to be fully
confronted.
Following the 16th and 17th CCP National
Congresses convened in 2002 and 2007
respectively, the current Chinese leader-
ship has given high priority to effectively
address the serious human development
challenges. Official discourses have
begun to de-emphasise the exclusive pur-
suit of GDP growth and now also attach
importance to social security and welfare;
equity, social justice and redistribution
of resources between different sectors,
regions and social groups; sustainability,
and equal sharing of development ben-
efits by the Chinese people; represented
in such discourses and campaigns as
‘building a harmonious society’, ‘uphold-
ing the “scientific development view”’,
‘people-centred and balanced develop-
ment’ and ‘industry subsidising agricul-
ture’, and since 2006 the ‘construction
of the new socialist countryside’ move-
ment. New policy initiatives introduced
in 2007 involve piloting in Chengdu and
Chongqing of an urban-rural integrated
development programme, and various
social protection schemes for rural-urban
migrants across the country. Yet we may
only be able to glean the gravity of the
problems and the daunting nature of the
tasks of integrating urban-rural develop-
ment from the provisional official time-
table: full integration of urban and rural
social welfare, for instance, is currently
scheduled for 2020. Whether this times-
cale is realistic is probably less important
than the longer-term effects of the new
policies.
Against this backdrop and in commemo-
ration of the 30th anniversary of the his-
torical turning point in China’s modern
history – the 3rd Plenary Session of the
11th CCP Central Committee, ECARDC
IX has launched the conference theme
– Rethinking urban-rural interactions in
China’s agricultural development: Beyond
the urban bias? We invite Chinese indig-
enous academics and international schol-
ars, development practitioners and those
from diverse policy arenas to contribute
thoughts, papers and panels around the
broad theme as stated above. The wider
aim and objectives of the conference
involve not only a critical reflection on
and rethink of China’s recent develop-
ment trajectories entailing development
strategies, policies and outcomes, but
also, on a historical and contemporary
basis to compare with developed and
other developing countries and regions
of the world, consider similarities and
differences with regard to the urban-
rural divide or integration, the lessons
that China can learn from such a com-
parison, and what contributions that the
Chinese experiences can make, theoreti-
cally, methodologically and empirically,
to our understanding and knowledge of