Unequal Citizens and Legal Reform in the Inter-Asian Context: Trans-local Collaboration Platform

Convener：Yu-Fan Chiu、Joyce C.H. Liu

Researchers: Joyce C.H. Liu 、Yu-Fan Chiu 、Ko-Lun Chen 、Poonam Sharma、 Jonathan Parhusip、Li Qi 、Raymond Lim
 

Research objectives:
This sub-project is linked up with the general theme of the joint project: “Conflict, Justice, and Decolonization” as discussed in the overall plan. It attempts to understand the crux of the problem from the scene of social conflict from the perspective of transnational migration and labor mobility. By so doing, it analyzes different components of social inequality. Through the dialogue between school and society, this research cluster is in close proximity to a great variety of social phenomena and NGO organizations, and through the multinational cooperation platform "Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes", we, together with international scholars, jointly analyze the historical context of social inequality, contemporary political and economic factors, as well as the rift between national laws and practical issues. Our goal is to try to expand the intervention of the knowledge practice model, legal discussion, policy formation, and cross- regional connection. We hope to stimulate more variety of knowledge production and knowledge decolonization, and attempt to criticique the law and intervene in the formation of policies, so that we can continue to rectify the situation of social inequality to assume the social responsibility and make academic contributions to Taiwan.

The goal of this research sub-project is to explore various forms of social inequality, especially the existential predicament of migrant workers, refugees, non-citizens and stateless persons, and to conduct dialogue between school and society, and to combine the experiences of NGO/CBO organizations so as to promote intervention by academic research, legal deliberations and policy formation. This research cluster assembles teachers and graduate researchers from both inside and outside the school setting to advance the research agenda.

Simultaneously, through the "Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes", we have assembled a multinational research team to conduct a "Global Humanities Institute" (GHI) project titled "Migration, Logistics, and Unequal Citizens in the Global Contexts" (2019-2021). The GHI was awarded the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes and Mellon Foundation grants (2019-2021). ( See https://ghi2020.web.nctu.edu.tw/. ) This project links up the partnerships of 12 multinational academic institutions, 36 international senior scholars, and 24 international young scholars for three years. In the process, we have established stable cooperative relations and expanded academic partnerships in other countries.

Our common goal—combining with the research of cross-interdisciplinary scholars— is to address different forms of social conflict and inequality in third-world countries within the global context, especially refugees, mobile laborers, stateless persons, and human trafficking under the mass migration, and to jointly discuss the formation of severely excluded discrimination, oppression and violence as expressed in laws and institutions in different societies. Through the exchange of experience between scholars and transnational NGOs, we also consider how to put forward more inclusive discourses to amend inappropriate laws and policy proposals.

We focus on the issues of transnational migration and unequal citizens, as the 21st century is an era of mass migration. According to the United Nations Bureau of Statistics (UNSD), as of 2019, the number of transnational migrants have reached 272 million, an increase of more than 100 million compared with 173 million in 2000. Compared with 70 million in 1960, there are 200 million more migrants. The rapid increase in transnational migration is partly caused by refugees who fled from wars in their home countries, and partly by transnational migrant workers who have been moved by global capital. Of the current transnational migrants, 83 million are in Asia, accounting for one third of the globe’s transnational migrant population. These transnational migrant populations have fundamentally changed the face of societies everywhere in the 21st century. As a result of leaving their homes to live and work in other places, they become non-citizens, and suffer all kinds of exploitation, discrimination, violence, and are even unable to protect their basic human rights. The impact of which is seen in different societies. As local societies are not yet ready to respond to these global social changes, civil politics has made the situation of internal colonization worse by comparison, and the topological analysis of the logistics system characterized by global labor extraction is all the more important.

However, because transnational migrant workers in Asian countries are all temporary "guest workers", although they may still stay for more than ten years, they are discriminated against, abused, and even exploited for lack of a residence permit. The process of nation-building across Asia after World War Two also oppressed or expelled people from many different religions or ethnic groups, resulting in a large number of refugees. In the 21st century, the number of these people migrating across borders has doubled, and their survival predicament has become more dire. The specific research questions of the transnational cooperative project "Migration, Logistics and Unequal Citizens in Contemporary Global Context" are as follows:

1. Under the context of neoliberal globalization in the 21st century, how does transnational migration in Asia reflect the trajectory of global capital and regional geopolitics?

2. How does the function performed by the logistics system—transporting materials, manpower, commodities, and information—reflect the co-construction of governments and transnational capital?

3. How does the situation faced by transnational migrant workers in Asia highlight the continuation of colonial-era racism and the pattern of labor extraction split along the ranks of citizens?

In the future, we will continue to deepen GHI's transnational cooperation, combining research institutions, research scholars and non-governmental organizations in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and other regions to continue to implement a cooperation platform for transnational research. We will exchange academic research and teaching experience through bilateral/multilateral academic conferences, academic research forums and transnational graduate workshops, and accumulate work in editing and publishing, online resource sharing, legal and policy comparisons and white papers on transnational labor mobility, and domestic legalization of mobile workers’ rights, and so forth.

Research Topics