This event showcases the research across all three campuses on Asia, with members presenting from the Asia Research Institute (ARI) in the UK and in Malaysia and the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies (IAPS) in China. The workshop will take place online and all ARI and IAPS members are welcome to attend.
Agenda:
Day 1: Tuesday 2 May
09:30 - 09:45
Emotional Diplomacy: Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, and Post-Colonial UK-India Relations
Paul McGarr, Associate Professor, UoN
The intertwined lives of Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi shaped their countries' shared histories. The paper reinterprets the personal and political relations of two transformative leaders. Thatcher and Gandhi’s interactions, inside and outside government, were of enduring significance to citizens of India and the UK. Given the subcontinent’s centrality to post-Brexit debates surrounding British security, commerce, immigration, and culture – it is contended that the recent past holds important lessons for contemporary policymakers. Elevated to the status of a ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’, Britain’s contacts with India are expected to strengthen over the next decade as they do more together to tackle global problems. A ‘living bridge’, fostered by the UK’s 1.6 million Indian diaspora, already binds citizens of both countries, and sustains familial and emotional ties that transcends trade and aid. Recovering the role of emotions in diplomacy, the paper asks what Thatcher and Gandhi’s private and professional connections reveal about Western preoccupations with the legitimacy of governance in the Global South? It challenges narratives of North-South exchange, recovering Indian global agency and accounting for visceral, as well as material influences, on bilateral relations. In Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses, Whisky Sisodia articulates a theory on the limitations of the English imagination. ‘The trouble with the Engenglish,’ Sisodia observes wryly, ‘is that their hiss hiss history happened overseas, so they do do don’t know what it means. Paradoxically, as current political discourse manifests imperial-era tropes redolent of Western reason and Eastern irrationality, the paper argues that Sisodia had a point.
09:45 - 10:00
A comparative study of socialist and communist powers in Asia conceptualising and strategising their public diplomacy
Nguyen Ngoc Thao LE (Jenny), PhD Candidate, UNNC
Public diplomacy (PD) as a communicative-based political instrument for foreign policy advancement has attracted global attention, especially from the Asian region. Rooted in Cold War context and derived from American perspective, the study of contemporary PD is unsurprisingly built on American experience and the belief in a universal formula for state communication with foreign publics. Against the backdrop of this encounter between this US-centric concept and Asian states whose historical and cultural developments are greatly diverse, nuances in how Asian states interpret and implement PD need further investigation. By combing the construction of identity with PD study, the research sets to explore the influence of socialism and communism as a part of collective identity on states’ PD conceptualization and strategy in the 21st century. Considering relevance and data availability, Russia, China, and Vietnam are selected for a comparative analysis based on reviewing secondary sources regarding post-USSR historical changes in national identity, PD policy, PD institutions and PD discourse. This work in progress hopes to contribute to the existing literature in two aspects: systemising the understanding of PD in some non-Western countries and partially corroborating the non-universal approach in PD scholarship. Moreover, the findings can also establish a helpful conceptual guidance for in-depth case studies of PD practices in states with somewhat similar identities.
10:00 - 10:15
The Doraleh Disputes: Infrastructure Politics in The Global South
Benjamin Barton, Associate Professor, UNM
This book focuses on underexploited data drawn from various legal disputes over the Doraleh Container Terminal in order to paint a portrait of South-South Cooperation (SSC) when it comes to infrastructure financing and construction in Africa as provided both by the UAE and China. By producing a detailed account of the drivers behind these disputes as well as the broader political outcomes they have generated, this study provides invaluable conceptual and empirical lessons on the contemporary meaning of SSC. In doing so, it helps readers garner a more acute understanding of the role played by Global South states and the private sector (SOEs) against the backdrop of SSC.
10:15 - 10:30
Discussant: Katharine Adeney
10:30
Q&A
Day 2: Wednesday 3 May
09:45-10:00
“Moderate” vs “Extremist” Muslims? How a Decontextualized Distinction Triggers a Misperception about (De)Radicalization in Malaysia
Athanasios (Thanos) Gkoutzioulis, Assistant Professor, UNM
This paper reviews the literature on radicalization and demonstrates how the application of a decontextualized distinction between “moderate” and “extremist” Muslims “essentializes religion” and undermines our assessment of an Islamic identity and radicalization. Malaysia is used as a case study to highlight the importance of considering the socio-political dimension of an Islamic identity before proceeding to an assessment of the Malaysians’ vulnerability to violent radicalization. Key (western-derived) literature on radicalization often draws a link among (Wahhabi) Salafism and Violent extremism but a decontextualized application of such approaches to radicalization can be misleading. Ultimately this study stresses the importance of considering the context specific nature of an Islamic identity before a theorist attempts to explain the process of radicalization and its effects on a country. Thus, this study discourages the reference to broad categories such as “moderate”, “extremist”, “Salafism” from an exclusively religious standpoint which conceals their contextual and sociopolitical features.
10:00 - 10:10
Discussant: Jason Klocek
10:10 - 10:30
Q&A
10:30 - 10:45
Key Patterns of LGBTQ Experiences in STEM: From Institutional Barriers to Transnationality
Yifei (Desmond) SHAO, Undergraduate student, UNNC and UoN UK
For decades, scholars have researched social inequalities of race, gender and other minority groups’ experiences in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Nonetheless, whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) professionals experience parallel disadvantaged circumstances remains to be further surveyed substantively. This paper draws on relevant literature concerning the normative STEM environment and different views (constructivism, liberalism, etc.), seeking to unpack the intersectionality between LGBTQ and STEM. Through conducting surveys targeted at international LGBTQ students regarding their academic, social, and mental experiences in STEM specifically, this paper argues that there exists a shared common dilemma for this group: sexual objectification and extra stress to increase their STEM competence. This paper comparatively analyses the results and reveals the institutional and transnational barriers for those LGBTQ students of different cultural backgrounds in the context of globalisation and international interactions and cooperation. This paper also contends that LGBTQ professionals in STEM become “victims” of sexual objectification mainly due to hypermasculinity and male-female dichotomy.
10:45 - 10:55
Discussant: Yuwei Xu
10:55
Q&A
Organisers: