Participants in the 1st pre-institute meeting in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Rapidly increasing international migrations have radically changed the composition of contemporary 21st-century societies. According to the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the estimate of the total number of international migrants had amounted to 272 million in mid-2019, up from 173 million in 2000. Compared to 70 million international migrants in 1960, the figure has increased by 200 million. Among the total number of international migrants, about 100 million international migrants were from Asia, and 83 million migrating within Asia. The escalation of the global migrant communities and the impacts upon local societies have attracted critical scholarship both in the humanities and social sciences in recent years.

Starting from 2018, the International Center for Cultural Studies of National Chiao Tung University (ICCS, NCTU) Taiwan has been focusing on the long-term project "Conflict, Justice, Decolonization: Critical Studies of Inter-Asian Societies." One of its major projects is "Migration, Logistics and Unequal Citizens in Contemporary Global Context."

This project has been awarded by the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) and the Mellon Foundation, and this project aims to hold the 10-day Global Humanities Institute (GHI) in 2020 at NCTU, Taiwan and invite scholars from around the world to engage with the question of the international migrants and unequal citizens. The themes of this GHI are: (1) Conditions of Migration and Precarious Lives; (2) Geo-Economic-Political Zoning Politics, Global Logistics, and Local Infrastructure Initiatives; (3) Theoretical Issues Concerning the Questions of Citizenship Politics as well as the Increasing Cases of Contemporary Unequal Citizens and Modern Slavery.
 

Core Partner Institutes & Affiliate Organizations of the GHI

This transnational and interdisciplinary joint-research project has successfully invited 13 partner institutes, with 35 researchers from different countries and different disciplinary background, including sociology, anthropology, law, political philosophy, history, literature, art and documentary studies from Australia, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Hong Kong and Poland.

This joint-research project has organized its first planning meeting at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in April 2019. It will call its second planning meeting next month (December 6~8, 2019) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
 

The working session for the 1st pre-institute meeting in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The ICCS trans-national joint-research project will facilitate the following developments and bring forth outcomes in society:

(1) To establish transnational and trans-local dialogues between the universities and societies. We encourage researchers in the field of the humanities and social sciences to face the changes in the communities and to build up dialogues between the academic field and societies. Listening to the experience of the NGOs, independent media workers, artistic activists, and the voices of the migrant workers, refugees, and stateless persons could enhance the research outcome so that we could change the mentality of the general public and the governmental laws and institutions.

(2) To foster multiform publications. Multiform publications including peer-reviewed journal articles, book volumes, MOOC, white paper, on-line open resources, documentary databank could disseminate our knowledge to different levels.

(3) To establish a sustainable trans-national joint research consortium. Establishing the Consortium for the Transnational Joint Research Center for Migration, Unequal Citizens, and Cultural Intervention (tentative title) could ensure the deep-rooted collaborations across trans-local societies.

Project Website: http://ghi2020.blog.nctu.edu.tw/
ICCS Website: http://iccs.nctu.edu.tw/en/index.php

PI
Joyce C.H. Liu, Director, International Center for Cultural Studies / Professor, Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies
E-mail: joyceliu@nctu.edu.tw

Project Officer
Dr. Ko-Lun Chen, Post-doctoral Researcher, International Center for Cultural Studies
E-mail: isidro.chen@gmail.com

Media Contact
Ms. Shu-Fen Su, International Center for Cultural Studies
Phone: 886-3-5712122, ext. 31658
E-mail: iccs-sfsu@nctu.edu.tw