Joint Project: Conflict, Justice, Decolonization 2.0: Asia in Transition in the 21st Century

The ICCS SPROUT Project 2.0 "Conflict, Justice, Decolonization 2.0: Asia in Transition in the 21st Century" (2023-2027) is a continuation of the first five-year SPROUT Project 1.0: "Conflict, Justice, and Decolonization: Critical Studies of Inter-Asian Societies." The first five-year project took "Re-evaluation of history—Analysis of Contemporary Issues—Towards the Future" as the central axis to consider the possibility of an equal and symbiotic society. The ICCS SPROUT Project 2.0 will further focus on the urgent issues of conflict and social inequality in the present, amid Asia's transformation in the 21st Century. The critical questions we address include the following topics: the transformation of Asia's geopolitical economy, technological upgrading of digital governance, capital flows, market liberalization, and political factors that have led to massive migration of migrant workers, refugees, and undocumented persons being marginalized in local societies due to discrimination, forced labor, violation of human rights, as well as environmental disasters and ecological crises caused by excessive development. These tremendous changes require necessary and urgent scholarly work but cannot be solved through a single-disciplinary approach alone. Thus, the ICCS project combines research and higher education and bridges transdisciplinary, trans-universities, and transnational collaboration scholars to collaborate in this joint project. ICCS project also works with civil society organizations and human rights groups. With the commitment to translating academic research into creative production and social action, in addition to scholarly publications in journals and books, this project also encourages artistic installation, critical curatorial performance, digital media creation, video essays, database platform establishment, and electronic publishing to carry out cutting-edge work. All these endeavors support breakthrough and forward-looking knowledge achievements and point to diversified knowledge production. The main development direction refers to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): optimizing the quality of higher education (SDGs-4), emphasizing gender equality (SDGs-5), reducing the inequality of marginalized people domestically and internationally (SDGs-10), raising awareness of environmental protection and sustainable survival of biodiversity (SDGs-15), promoting peace, justice and sound judicial systems (SDGs-16), and establishing partnerships for transnational cooperation alliances (SDGs-17). Our ultimate aim is to create an inclusive society of equal co-existence.