Lectures by TARN Members Published
đź“ť The following articles are revised from a TARN panel presented at the 2025 CHCI Annual Meeting in Berlin, Germany. The original publications are on the CJD Platform.
This panel addresses the rise of authoritarian regimes in our time, while responding to the theme of this conference—ressentiment. For us, ressentiment takes various forms, locating its scapegoats in racialised, gendered, and marginalised others—both domestically and internationally. As a deep-rooted sense of antagonism and insecurity, it contains neither humour nor irony but instead manifests as stubborn disavowal and brutal suppression. We analyse how these affective undercurrents are not merely episodic but structural, systemic, and institutional, with deep historical roots. Through the artworks, we trace a long history of migration in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and artistic intersections with Europe. We also consider how intellectual interventions and experimental practices might resist the authoritarian and repressive logic of our age.
Wired Tianxia, Wounded Borders:
Ressentiment,
Firewalls, Migrant Bodies, & Aesthetic Interventions
What unfolds when Tianxia— “All-Under-Heaven”—is digitally interwoven into a global Großraum? Can such a wired realm nurture harmony as kin within a planetary household? Unlikely. Ressentiment festers beneath the surface, shaped by geo-historical legacies and geopolitical anxieties. Apparatuses like Germany’s proposed digital Brandmauer or China’s Great Firewall are merely the architectural facades of deeper affective fortifications. These sentiments, displaced onto racialized others, migrants, and outsiders, manifest as localized xenophobia and structural precarity, and echo through contemporary artistic expression. This panel examines these entanglements across Europe and Asia while envisioning ethical and intellectual interventions against the repressive currents of our digital zeitgeist.
Keywords: ressentiment, digital governance, migration, tianxia
ARTICLE
PART I (READ FULL ARTICLE)
- Digital Tianxia, Ressentiment, and the Struggle for Alternatives
Joyce C.H. Liu (Professor/Diretor, ICCS-NYCU/TARN Member) - Firewalls
Brett Neilson (Professor, ICS-WSU/TARN Member)
PART II (READ FULL ARTICLE)
- Contestations over Migration
Manuela Bojadzijev (Professor/Department Integration, Social Networks and
Cultural Lifestyles, HeadHumboldt-Universität zu Berlin/TARN Member) - Tactical Resistance of Minority Gig Workers
Lisa Leung (Associate Professor, Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University/TARN Member)