CHCI-GLOBAL HUMANITIES INSTITUTE 2020-2021
Migration, Logistics and Unequal Citizens in Contemporary Global Context
A webinar on “Borders, Logistics and Unequal Lives”
22 SEPTEMBER 2020
7:00 PM (GMT+8)
INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR CULTURAL STUDIES
NATIONAL CHIAO TUNG UNIVERSITY
TAIWAN (R.O.C)
The webinar on “Borders, Logistics and Unequal Lives,” to be held on 22 September 2020, is the first event we organize for the CHCI-GLOBAL HUMANITIES INSTITUTE 2020-2021: Migration, Logistics and Unequal Citizens in Contemporary Global Context.
We begin with the issue of “borders, logistics, and unequal lives” in the time of COVID-19 as an introduction to the series of events we plan to initiate in the coming months. In this webinar, Sandro Mezzadra, Ranabir Samaddar, Brett Neilson, and Joyce C.H. Liu will offer their reflections and thoughts on the research lines we need to engage concerning the precarity of migrant lives in the pandemic and the operation of logistics behind the flow of capital. The forum provided by this webinar aims to bring together all GHI participants, speakers, and researchers from the partner institutes to exchange their experiences, views, and research outcomes with critical outlooks to aspects of border politics, logistics, and rising inequalities from a global perspective. This webinar will also open to the public so that we can generate more discussions for future research.
The term ‘unequal’ provides a vast array of opinions and impressions. The deleterious effects of these inequalities are more dominant among vulnerable communities, for instance, marginalized migrant categories, segregated refugees, slum dwellers, and other economically penurious groups. However, ‘unequal’ circumstances are not only results of economic unevenness but also caused by policies of modern nation-states. The tumultuous transformations in border controls and territorial supremacies have created the imperative for us to reanalyze the questions revolving around these keywords.
About the Speakers
Distinguished scholars from different parts of the world will virtually mark their presence and present their research (ongoing and conducted) to the audience. The forum will host four distinguished academicians:
Prof. Joyce C.H. Liu: Professor Liu is the Director at the International Center for Cultural Studies and International Graduate Institute for Inter-Asia Cultural Studies and Professor at the Institute of Social research and cultural studies, National Chiao Tung University. Her research covers the critique of East-Asian modernity, Chinese political thoughts in the 20th century, focusing on issues related to the questions of bio-politics, border politics, unequal citizenship, civic exclusion, and internal coloniality.
See: http://www.srcs.nctu.edu.tw/srcs_en/teachers_cv_01_e.htm
Professor Brett Neilson: Professor Neilson is a Professor and Research Director at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University. His research and writings aim to provide alternative ways of conceiving globalization, emphasizing its social and cultural dimensions. His work has derived original and provocative means for rethinking the significance of globalization for a wide range of contemporary problems and predicaments, including the proliferation of borders, the ascendancy of financial markets, the pressures of population aging, the governance of logistical chains, and the role of digital infrastructures. See: http://www.westernsydney.edu.au/ics/people/researchers/brett_neilson
Dr. Ranabir Samaddar: Dr. Samaddar is the Director of the Calcutta Research Group, and belongs to the school of critical thinking. He has pioneered along with others peace studies programs in South Asia. He has worked extensively on issues of justice and rights in the context of conflicts in South Asia. His particular research has been on migration and refugee studies, the theory and practices of dialogue, nationalism, and postcolonial statehood in South Asia, and new regimes of technological restructuring and labor control.
See: http://www.mcrg.ac.in/rs.asp
Sandro Mezzadra: Prof. Mezzadra is Associate Professor of political theory at the University of Bologna and is an adjunct fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society of the Western Sydney University. His recent work has centered on the relations between globalization, migration, and capitalism as well as on postcolonial criticism.
See: http://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/sandro.mezzadra/cv-en
Moderators:
Ko-Lun Chen, Poonam Sharma (Post-Doctoral Fellows)
International Center for Cultural Studies, National Chiao Tung University.
For a smooth webinar experience, we have decided to limit the slots. For registration, please fill out the following form http://forms.gle/Wj93pp3BiBQzfiUw6 before 15th September 2020.