Pacific Worlds in Motion II: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Asian Migrations

Jointly organised by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Migration Cluster and Department of Geography, NUS;

and

Green College, St. John’s College & the Faculty of Graduate Studies, The University of British Columbia.

Date: 12-13 March 2009
Location: NUS
Plenary Speakers : Prof. Cindy Fan, Department of Geography, University of California Los Angeles; Prof. David Ley, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia; Prof. Geraldine Pratt, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia; & Prof. Henry Yu, Department of History, University of British Columbia.

This conference aims to better understand Asian migrations within the Asia Pacific region and globally. Two broad themes are covered:

(1) Asian mobilities within Asia and
(2) Asian mobilities around the world.

The first theme aims to provide an avenue to engage with and develop understandings of material/intellectual cultures, and constructs of national belonging/exclusion experienced by various Asian communities within Asia and its borders. The second theme aims to situate Asian migrations within a larger global context by comparing parallel migration histories and processes occurring from Asia to the major regions of the world, especially Canada, the United States, Latin America, Middle East, Africa, Europe and Australia. Both themes aim to reveal how a sense of Asian transnational or migrant identity has emerged in the past century through gendered, economic, racialized and classed power relations.

The focus will be on theoretical and empirical studies that compare Asian migrations across various scales, including the translocal, transnational and transregional levels. Key issues this conference aims to explore include (but are not limited to):

Identity (gender, race and religion)
Family, households and intimacy
Globalization, citizenship, multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism
Assimilation and difference, migrant community formation
Home and return migration
Asian states and migration policies

This two-day conference aims to bring together graduate students and early career researchers from all disciplines pursuing research on Asian/Pacific migrations. We hope that this conference will start processes of mentorship among senior scholars, early career researchers, and graduate students.

Attending the seminar:

The Call For Papers is now closed.

If you wish to attend the conference as an observer, please email your name, affiliation and contact email to Ms Sharon Wok at fasswe@nus.edu.sg by Friday, 6 March 2009.