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The Newsletter Encouraging knowledge and enhancing the study of Asia iias.asia 8684 The Newsletter The Study Asian migration studies The Focus Waste and social mobilisation The Region Economic and social effects of the pandemic 2 Contents In this edition of the Focus From the Director 3 Nurturing community during COVID-19 Environmental issues, ICAS 12 and the IBP 2021 4 Crafting a Global Future social activism and The ICAS Book Prize Story 5-9 The ICAS Book Prize: A multilingual policy challenges window on the world of Asian studies Paul van der Velde Aysun Uyar Makibayashi Environmental change issues, both sudden shocks and gradual changes have been forcing states, The Study communities and individuals to transform their 10-11 The Shanghai lilong: A new ways of coping with these adversities. Recently, not concept of home in China only governmental and state-to-state international Gregory Bracken 12-13 Asian migration studies: Recent initiatives but also non-state interactions are joining publications and new directions the decision-making processes through their public Michiel Baas discussions, demonstrations and official involvement 14-15 May Fourth at 100 in Singapore in the actual processes of law-making with regard and Hong Kong: Memorialization, to these environmental change issues. This short localization, and negotiation Els van Dongen and David Kenley Focus section pays attention to this multi-level 16-17 Ode to the ‘little sun’: Everyday involvement of our societies to the policy challenges thermal practice and energy and policy transformation processes of the local, infrastructure in Chongqing (China) national and international decision makers to face Madlen Kobi 18 Asian Studies in Pakistan and bring more responsive as well as responsible Gul-i-Hina Shahzad solutions for our pending environmental change issues. Academic partnership, social activism, mass The Review mobilisation and raising awareness about day to day adjustments to these ongoing environmental 19-25 Selected reviews from newbooks.asia changes, as well as people’s understanding of 26-27 New reviews on newbooks.asia 28 New titles on newbooks.asia already changing concepts of environmental and social changes, are some of the main issues raised The Focus in the articles of this Focus. 29-30 Environmental issues, social activism and policy challenges Aysun Uyar Makibayashi 31-33 From cyberspace to the streets: Emerging environmental paradigm of justice and citizenship in Vietnam Quang Dung Nguyen 34-35 Waste and social mobilisation: Anthropological explorations beyond Asia and Europe Judith Schlehe 36-37 The Green Ger Village Master Plan: University cooperation and achieving the SDGs The Newsletter is a free periodical In this issue Patricia Chica-Morales published by the International Institute I would like to start by expressing my and Antonio J. Domenech for Asian Studies (IIAS). As well as extreme gratitude for everyone who contributed 38-39 Environmental challenges of to this issue. I have been most impressed with international migration in East Asia serving as a forum for scholars to share everyone’s commitment to deliver, despite the demanding circumstances. It wasn’t easy, but Aysun Uyar Makibayashi research, commentary and opinion with together we managed to compile yet another colleagues in academia and beyond, fantastic issue. Many thanks! We hope you will all join us in Kyoto next The Region The Newsletter is also a window into year for ICAS 12. Find details about submitting the Institute. Information about the a proposal to the conference, and your titles 1 40-4 News from Australia and the Pacific to the Book Prize, on p.4 of this issue. 42-44 News from Southeast Asia programmes and activities of IIAS On pp.5-9, IBP General Secretary Paul 45-47 China Connections can be found in the Network pages van der Velde, tells us the ‘Story of the IBP’. Read about its beginnings and how it grew of each issue of The Newsletter. into the largest book prize of its kind. Three of our regional editors have The Network contributed to this issue: The Asia Institute in Melbourne, NYU Shanghai and Fudan 948-4 Humanities across Borders Programme he International Institute for Asian University, and the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute 50 IIAS Fellowship Programme Studies (IIAS) is a global Humanities in Singapore. Find their articles on pp.40-47. 51 Announcements Tand Social Sciences institute and a The report on pp.48-49 is the latest 52-53 IIAS Research knowledge exchange platform, based in update of a project in the IIAS Humanities Leiden, the Netherlands, with programmes across Borders programme: ‘Retelling the that engage Asian and other international neighbourhood’. partners. IIAS takes a thematic and multi- Our fellows and latest announcements The Portrait sectoral approach to the study of Asia can be found on pp.50-51; IIAS research 54-55 Forgotten Faces. Visual Presentation and actively involves scholars and experts programmes, networks and other initiatives of Trauma and Mass Killing in Asia from different disciplines and regions in its are described in brief on pp.52-53; and activities. Our current thematic research on pp.54-55 you will find the beautifully Charles B. Wang Center, clusters are ‘Asian Heritages’, ‘Asian Cities’ haunting images of this issues’ Portrait: Stony Brook University and ‘Global Asia’. ‘Forgotten Faces’. The Newsletter No. 86 Summer 2020 3 From the Director The Newsletter is a free periodical published by IIAS. As well as being a window into the institute, The Newsletter Nurturing community also links IIAS with the community of Asia scholars and the worldwide public Below: IIAS staff keeping interested in Asia and Asian in touch through online during COVID-19 meetings. studies. The Newsletter bridges the gap between specialist knowledge and public discourse, and continues to serve as a forum for scholars to share Philippe Peycam research, commentary and opinion with colleagues in academia and beyond. Postal address PO Box 9500 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands Visitors Rapenburg 59 Leiden T +31 (0) 71-527 2227 [email protected] Colophon The Newsletter No. 86 Summer 2020 Managing editor: Sonja Zweegers midst the anxieties and grief brought concentrates on the value of a dignified life in networks we have created so as to deepen Guest editor for The Focus: on by the COVID-19 pandemic, IIAS its multiple expressions. This idea is certainly each other’s experience and mission. Aysun Uyar Makibayashi A– a mediating space for dialogue and compounded by the sentiment that COVID - Systematically anchoring activities in Regional editors: generation of knowledge on, in and with is just one of nature’s responses to human contexts, at regional, national, and local Edwin Jurriëns and Andy Fuller Asia – is witnessing the disruption of many hubris, and that it is yet another warning levels, based on respect for the diversity (Asia Institute in Melbourne), of its activities and plans. Many programmed against a global ecological crisis that is of conditions and an equal belief in Su-Ann Oh (ISEAS–Yusof Ishak events have been either cancelled or ahead of us. Economic and social disparities trans-local trans-cultural understanding. Institute), Fan Zhang (NYU postponed indefinitely. Our sense of purpose may appear less acceptable now, especially - Moving beyond the narrowly Shanghai). and way of functioning as a global-local when the effects of the virus tend to reinforce individualistic, fragmented model The Review pages editor: platform of engaged scholarship is being put them, with large swaths of society, in both of scholarship through processes of Wai Cheung to the test. Yet, with the little hindsight we the global North and South, left without collective deliberation around themes The Network pages editor: already have, I can say that the confinement jobs, education or healthcare. Observing the that have the potential to produce Sandra Dehue period, if at first unsettling, is somehow fact that service providers hitherto deemed transformative shared outcomes. Digital issue editor: turning into a meaningful experience for subalterns – nurses, cleaners, carers, farmers, - Innovation through creative disruption Thomas Voorter us. We, like so many other organisations all postal workers, and so forth – enabled us to by bringing into contact peoples, ideas Graphic Design: around the world, have had no choice but continue to live our lives under lockdown, is and approaches otherwise unlikely to Paul Oram to brace ourselves and to reflect upon our the kind of collective realisation that is bound interrelate; to support ‘experiential’ Lava mission and methods. To what extent can to drastically alter our perceptions of the meeting formats that can instil IIAS’s mode of functioning withstand the world, of the role of youth, of the falsity of new debates, and encourage new Printing: EPC, Belgium challenges of navigating the present crisis artificial structures, and the space of action consciousness or solutions. and its future unfolding? and reflection that is needed to recalibrate - Consciously choreograph these multiple social relations at large. innovations-disruptions to create Submissions To ensure that the IIAS team would not turn Against these needs and aspirations arising conducive situations for new conviviality, Issue #87: 15 July 2020 into an assortment of scattered colleagues, from a new urgency impinging upon both new meanings, new understandings. Issue #88: 1 Dec 2020 left to work on their separate tasks in isolation, global and local actors, IIAS stands as a model One word can sum up IIAS’s post-COVID Issue #89: 15 March 2021 our first decision was to organise everyone of engaged scholarship. The institute has method of action and resolve, rarely used for into virtual ‘working groups’, with the aim long taken steps that in the present context an academic institution: community, or the to synchronise our actions and shape them have become even more relevant: initiate art of community formation and community Submission enquiries into broader collective efforts.
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