Past Events

2019 | Asian Migration | Devleena Ghosh

Devleena Ghosh University of Technology Sydney Biography Devleena Ghosh is Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney. She has published widely on colonial and environmental studies in the Indian Ocean. Her current projects include 1. Comparative studies on the transition to renewable energy in India, Australia and Germany; 2. Coal mining and climate change in India, Australia and Germany; and another on the status and dissemination of renewable energy in Australia, India and Germany; 3. Women and progressive education in India and Australia. She is the author of Teaching Change: Lucy Woodcock’s International Life (with Heather Goodall and Helen Randerson, Australian National University Press, 2019) and of Colonialism and Modernity (with Paul Gillen, 2007, UNSW Press). She is also editor of The Cultures of Trade: Indian Ocean Exchanges (with Stephen Muecke, 2007, Cambridge Scholars Press), of Water, Borders and Sovereignty in Asia and Oceania (with Heather Goodall and Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, 2008, Routledge) and Women in Asia: Shadowlines (2012, Cambridge Scholars Press). Devleena Ghosh won the Wang Gung-Wu prize for 2016 awarded by the Asian Studies Review for an article entitled “Burma-Bengal Crossings: Intercolonial Interconnections in Pre-Independence India” (40, no. 2, 2016). 「 Unofficial Travel: Connections and Circulations in the Indian Ocean in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century 」 This presentation explores the unofficial circulation of people from in the Indian Ocean and argues that these movements constitute both an integral and a destabilizing element in the conceptualization of the nation state and diasporic movements in the 19th and 20th century. Differential mobility for populations, depending on race, class and gender, meant that attempts by imperial and colonial governments to control the movements of their subjects met with indifferent success. Such unregulated journeys were hard to monitor, difficult to police and ultimately,

2019 | Asian Migration | Duane Corpis

Duane Corpis NYU Shanghai Biography Duane Corpis is Associate Professor of History, NYU Shanghai; Global Network Associate Professor, NYU. Prior to joining NYU Shanghai, he was Assistant Professor at Cornell University. He holds a PhD from New York University. Professor Corpis is recipient of the 2013-2014 Smith Book Award from the Southern Historical Association and the 2013 Hans Rosenberg Article Prize from the Central European History Society. He has been an NEH Humanities Summer Scholar, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University, and a Herzog Ernst Fellow at the Gotha Research Center and Library. He also serves on the Editorial Collective of the journal Radical History Review. #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube CONTACT US Email: cga@nyu.edu Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032 WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA Address: 1555 Century Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China. © 2019 All Rights Reserved © 2019 All Rights Reserved ON THE SITE About Us People Events News Publications Research Projects Database #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube MAIN LINKS New York Shanghai Abu Dhabi             CONTACT US       Email: cga@nyu.edu       Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032       WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA       Address: 1555 Century Avenue,       Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China.

2019 | Asian Migration | Shirin Esther Edwin

Shirin Esther Edwin NYU Shanghai Biography Shirin Edwin is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, NYU Shanghai, and Global Network Associate Professor, NYU. She is the author of L’islam mis en relation: Le roman francophone de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Kimé, 2009) and Privately Empowered: Expressing Feminism in Islam in Northern Nigerian Fiction (Northwestern University Press, 2016). She has published on Islam, gender and African literatures in Journal of African Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies International Forum, Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Studies, Gender and Education and Teaching the African Novel (MLA, Options for Teaching). #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube CONTACT US Email: cga@nyu.edu Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032 WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA Address: 1555 Century Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China. © 2019 All Rights Reserved © 2019 All Rights Reserved ON THE SITE About Us People Events News Publications Research Projects Database #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube MAIN LINKS New York Shanghai Abu Dhabi   &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbspCONTACT US       Email: cga@nyu.edu       Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032       WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA       Address: 1555 Century Avenue,       Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China.

2019 | Asian Migration | Qian Zhu

Qian Zhu Duke Kunshan University Biography Qian Zhu is a historian of modern China and a theorist of everyday life. She obtained PhD in History from New York University. Her research is on the intellectual history of China since the late 19th century onwards. Her book investigates the conceptualization of everyday life and the China’s leftist movement in the first half of the 20th century, which concludes with the Chinese anti-fascist global alliance in Southeast Asia during the Pacific War. Beyond her specific field of modern China, she is working through feminism and gender, cultural politics, the theory of everyday life, urban studies and labor history. Her second book project in particular looks into the question of the urban and the rural and the residential housing for workers in the first half of the 20th century. 「 Exile to the Equator: Chinese Anti-Colonialism in Southeast Asia in the WWII 」 Historical research of Chinese anti-colonialism have focused upon nationalism, state-party anti-colonial militarism, and, less often, local military resistances in China against Euro-Americans, Russians, and Japanese since the Opium War in the mid-19th century. As a part of the WWII global history, Chinese anti-colonial history has been studied around the themes of national and local military campaigns against Japanese with the British and American support, and the anti-colonial social movements and cultural activisms in the Chinese territory. This paper investigates two journalistic writings of the Chinese prominent intellectuals, Hu Yuzhi and Shen Zijiu, first published in 1946 in Singapore and then in 1985 in Shanghai in a collection of essays, Exile to the Equator (liuwang zai chidaoxianshang). In their writings, Hu and Shen detailed their experiences of exile and anti-colonial collectivism and activisms with the local Chinese communities in Singapore, Malaysia, Sumatra, and Indonesia from 1941–1945. While documenting the indigenous people’s

2019 | Asian Migration | Hendri Yulius

Hendri Yulius Independent Writer and Researcher Biography Hendri Yulius (He, him, his) is an independent writer and researcher based in Indonesia. He completed an MA by Research in Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney and Master’s in Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. His articles on gender, sexuality, and cultural politics have been published in The Jakarta Post, New Mandala, Asian Correspondent, and Indonesia at Melbourne, among others. He is currently completing a monograph on Indonesia’s queer activisms. 「 Aspirational Migration, National Attachment: Trans Mobility and National Belonging in Indonesia 」 Popular trans narratives and representations have been deployed within the frame of “transition”, “migration”, and “movement.” Such frames largely indicate prevailing cultural understandings of trans subjectivity, which are built upon the assumption that there is always a concrete destination, in the form of embodiment and identity, that serves as the ultimate goal for trans subjects. Stories about trans travelling abroad to obtain gender affirmation surgery is not difficult to find in popular discourses. Nevertheless, critics have shown that, as access to hormone and other medical procedures for gender affirmation is unevenly distributed among trans subjects, the overemphasis on this identity-reification attainable only for middle-class (and often, white and able-bodied) trans individuals thus reflects the entanglement between trans politics, conspicuous consumption, and class-based position. Complicating the above accounts, in this paper I attempt to factor in the narrative of “national belonging and identity” into the current debates on trans mobility. Drawing on an archive of celebrity transgender stories, popular trans discourses, and multiple publications from queer activist organizations in Indonesia, I situate Indonesian transgender mobility as a form of aspirational citizenship, in which trans subjects not only seek for the improvement of their life but also reify their national value and identity, which positions “individual

2019 | Asian Migration | In-Jin Yoon

In-Jin Yoon Korea University Biography In-Jin Yoon is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Deputy Director of the Asiatic Research Institute at Korea University. He served as president of the Association for North Korean Migrants Studies and the Association for the Studies of Koreans Abroad. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago and taught at the Asian American Studies Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara. His major publications include On My Own: Korean Businesses and Race Relations in America, Korean Diaspora: Migration, Adaptation, and Identity of Overseas Koreans, North Korean Migrants: Lives, Consciousness, Support Policy for Resettlement, South Koreans’ Perceptions of Migrant Workers and Multicultural Society, Migration and Transnational Space in Northeast Asia, Mutual Perceptions of North Korean Migrants and South Koreans, Trends and Tasks of Studies of Koreans Abroad, and The History of Korea’s Abroad. His research interests include social psychology, minorities, international migration, and multiculturalism. 「 International Migration and Migrant Integration in Korea: Their Relevance to Japan and Chinese Taipei 」 Korea has been experiencing a rapid growth of international migration since the early 1990s and Korean society has become a racially, ethnically, and culturally pluralistic society. The transformation of Korean society has caused tremendous debates and tensions between natives and migrants and among native Koreans themselves about what kind of society Korea should be. I propose that the three concepts, such as multicultural lag, a change from multicultural fever to multicultural fatigue, and immigration dilemma, are useful to explain the current situation and issues of immigration, migrant integration, and multiculturalism in Korea. I also discuss the implications and relevance of the Korean experience to Japan and Chinese Taipei, and predict the future of immigration, migrant integration, and multiculturalism in the three Northeast Asian countries. #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube CONTACT

2019 | Asian Migration | Brenda S.A. Yeoh

Brenda S.A. Yeoh National University of Singapore Biography Brenda S.A. Yeoh is Raffles Professor of Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Research Leader of the Asian Migration Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, NUS. Her research interests include the politics of space in colonial and postcolonial cities, and a wide range of migration research in Asia, including key themes such as cosmopolitanism and highly skilled talent migration; gender, social reproduction and care migration; migration, national identity and citizenship issues; globalising universities and international student mobilities; and cultural politics, family dynamics and international marriage migrants. She has published widely on these topics and her recent books include Contested Memoryscapes: The Politics of Second World War Commemoration in Singapore (Routledge, 2016, with Hamzah Muzaini), Asian Migrants and Religious Experience: From Missionary Journeys to Labor Mobility (Amsterdam University Press, 2018 with Bernardo Brown) and Handbook of Asian Migrations (Routledge, 2018 with Gracia Liu-Farrer). 「 Transnational Migrations, Plural Diversities and the Spaces of Encounter in Singapore 」 Contemporary postcolonial migration is a compelling force increasing diversity in globalising cities such as Singapore. Amidst multiplicative diversities, processes of enclavement and encounter along a spectrum of self/other divides, occur alongside those of selective acculturation and negotiated co-existence as people with different histories and geographies meet and take stock of one another in the constant (re)making of divercities. While civility in public spaces (“ritualised codes of etiquette”) is often taken to be the key litmus test for private prejudices/moralities, it is equally important to rethink the politics of diversity and migrant encounter in private spaces, where “the other” may be strange and unfamiliar, but may well be intimate and even familial. For global cities such as Singapore to develop a truly cosmopolitan urban ethic, not just the conviviality of its streets but the

2019 | Asian Migration | Chunji Xuan

Chunji Xuan Jilin University Biography Chunji Xuan is Assistant Professor at Northeast Asian Studies College, Jilin University. She served as Humanities Korea (HK) Research Professor at the Asiatic Research Institute, Korea University. She obtained her BA in Management from Jilin University in 2007, and received her MA in Economics at Jilin University in 2009. She received her PhD in Economics at Korea University in 2015. Her areas of research include econometrics, macroeconomics and Northeast Asia regional analysis. Her recent publications include “New dynamics of consumption and output” (Journal of Macroeconomics, forthcoming), “An Analysis on Causes of Synchronous Phenomena of China’s Regional Economies” (Korean-Chinese Social Science Studies, Vol. 12, 2014), “An analysis on effects of real estate policies by Chinese government—Centering on ‘Xian’gouling’” (Chinese Studies, Vol. 61, 2014). 「 The Effect of Korean-Chinese Immigrants to the Trade and FDI Between China and South Korea 」 Hundreds of thousands of Korean population came to South Korea after the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea. These people who are familiar with the language and culture of both China and South Korea have made important contributions to the economic and cultural exchanges between China and South Korea. This paper estimates the effect of Korean-Chinese residences to trade and FDI of South Korea. I found the total number of Korean-Chinese living in South Korea is closely related to the trade between China and South Korea, while the number of Chinese other than Korean-Chinese living in South Korea is not significantly related to it. #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube CONTACT US Email: cga@nyu.edu Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032 WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA Address: 1555 Century Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China. © 2019 All Rights Reserved © 2019 All Rights Reserved ON THE SITE About Us People Events News Publications Research Projects Database #NYUShanghai

2019 | Asian Migration | Liang Xu

Liang Xu Peking University Biography Liang Xu is Assistant Professor at the Peking University School of International Studies and Secretary-General of the Peking University Center for African Studies. Liang’s research interests include Chinese diaspora in Africa, social and gender history of Africa, the political economy of African development, and international relations. Liang has a PhD in African History from Harvard University (2010–2017). Liang received his Bachelor of Arts in International Relations in 2005 from Peking University, where he also completed his first doctorate in International Relations in 2010. Liang’s dissertation project at Harvard examined the history of labor-intensive industrialization in South Africa’s former border areas with a particular focus on ethnic Chinese garment factories and Zulu women workers. It is titled “On the Edge of Capitalism: African Local States, Chinese Family Firms, and the Transformation of Industrial Labor.” Over the years, Liang’s research has been funded by various Harvard University grants, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French National Research Agency (ANR), the Government of Ghana, the Japan Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and the South African Millennium Trust. 「 Factory, Family, and Industrial Frontier: A Socioeconomic Study of Chinese Clothing Firms in Newcastle, South Africa 」 This paper examines ethnic Chinese garment production and Zulu women workers in Newcastle, South Africa – a former border town between white South Africa and the black KwaZulu homeland that had been economically important for its coal and steel production since the 1960s. The “Asian Strategy” adopted by the Newcastle Town Council in the early 1980s transformed the town into a prominent site of low-wage, labor-intensive, and female-oriented light manufacturing. The established scholarship, while providing useful explanations for the arrival of ethnic Chinese clothing factories and offering valid critiques of South Africa’s industrial policies, pays little attention either to Chinese business practices or their

2019 | Asian Migration | Kellynn Wee

Kellynn Wee National University of Singapore Biography Kellynn Wee is Research Associate at the Asia Research Institute (National University of Singapore). Her research interests are focused on low-waged labour migration in Asia; migrant advocacy and civil society; credit, debt, and risk; and gender, intimacy, emotions, and the body. She has published in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Globalizations, City, International Migration, and Global Social Policy. 「 Maid Agents and the Puzzle of Moral Credibility: Brokering Migrant Domestic Work in Singapore 」 In Asia, migrant labourers on short-term contracts in low-waged jobs often have their mobilities mediated by the migration industry. Based on 29 months of fieldwork, this paper examines the practices of the employment agents who recruit migrant domestic workers from countries such as Indonesia to work in Singapore. It draws together anthropological theorising on brokerage and scholarship on the migration industry to ask why migration brokers carry out their practices in ways that often heighten the surveillance of migrant women. We argue that brokers’ uncertainty about a migrant domestic worker’s moral credibility—which stems from the ways in which domestic workers are imagined in indelibly racialised and gendered ways—is fundamental to the organisation of their practices. Migration brokers attempt to draw an equivalence between domestic workers’ living labour and replicable units of commodity so that they can sell migrant labour to employers. However, they are also cognisant that this moral interiority is ontologically impossible to evaluate, and that domestic workers possess the fundamental capacity to perform, subvert, and act. We argue that in order to resolve this, brokers map out a moral career for domestic workers as a blueprint for their idealised universe of order, in which domestic workers transform from naïve villager to triumphant returnee. Ultimately, we show that brokers act not because they set out explicitly to

2019 | Asian Migration | Tsung-Lung Tsai

Tsung-Lung Tsai National Chung Cheng University Biography Tsung-Lung Tsai is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communications at National Chung Cheng University (Taiwan) and an independent documentary director. Tsai’s works are known for combining humanitarian sensitivity and a rational analytical approach in dealing with issues such as human rights, environmental disasters, and cultural diversity. His film Killing in Formosa won the Best Documentary for the 2001 Golden Harvest Awards. Behind the Miracle won the Best Documentary on Current Affairs of the 2002 Excellent Journalism Awards. My Imported Wife was invited to screen in the Best of INPUT category at the 2004 International Public Television Screening Conference and was archived in the Museum of Television and Radio in New York. Oil Disease: Surviving Evil reveals the struggles of surviving victims of the 1979 PCBs Poisoning Incident and has won the first prize of the 2008 South Taiwan Film Festival. Tsai was the chief editor of the book The Love and Hatred of Documentaries (2009), featuring interviews with 12 mid-generation documentary directors in Taiwan. More recently, Tsai has collaborated with his Vietnamese immigrant spouse and fellow filmmaker, Kim-Hong Nguyen, in making documentaries about Taiwan’s Southeast Asian new immigrants and migrant workers, such as Out/Marriage, Lovely Strangers and its sequel See You, Lovable Strangers. In 2017, Tsai and Nguyen founded Khuôn viên văn hoá Việt Nam, a cultural center in Chiayi County where they have been holding cultural festivals and community-based programs to promote mutual understanding between Taiwan’s immigrant and non-immigrant locals. 「 Documenting Taiwan’s New Immigrants and Migrant Workers: Production Process and Post-Production Challenges 」 Taiwan is a society where diverse Austronesian peoples and a host of immigrant communities come into contact and live together in pursuit of a better life. While it is fair to say that all Taiwanese are descendants

2019 | Asian Migration | Mark Swislocki

Mark Swislocki NYU Abu Dhabi Biography Mark Swislocki specializes in the history of China. His current research focuses on the environmental history of Southwest China. He is the author of Culinary Nostalgia: Regional Food Culture and the Urban Experience in Shanghai (Stanford, 2009) and articles on the history of nutrition, critical animal studies, and the environment, including “Seeing the Forest for the Village, Nation, and Province: Forestry Policy and Environmental Management in Early-Twentieth-Century Yunnan” (Twentieth-Century China, 39.3: 195-215, October 2014). He is co-PI of “Diverse Cities: A Digitally Networked Urban Food Lab for North-South Collaboration on Sustainable Urban Food Policy, Advocacy, and Representation (with Krishnendu Ray, NYU New York and Anna Greenspan, NYU Shanghai), awarded an NYU Global Seed Grant for 2016–2018. #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube CONTACT US Email: cga@nyu.edu Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032 WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA Address: 1555 Century Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China. © 2019 All Rights Reserved © 2019 All Rights Reserved ON THE SITE About Us People Events News Publications Research Projects Database #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube MAIN LINKS New York Shanghai Abu Dhabi             CONTACT US       Email: cga@nyu.edu       Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032       WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA       Address: 1555 Century Avenue,       Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China.

2019 | Asian Migration | Tina Shrestha

Tina Shrestha Waseda University Biography Tina Shrestha is Assistant Professor in the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS) at Waseda University. She received her PhD in Anthropology from Cornell University (2014) and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Asia Research Institute (ARI) at the National University of Singapore (2016–2018). Her research interests include the contemporary US immigration and asylum regime, inter-Asian migrations, brokerage, and infrastructure. Her publications have appeared in Anthropology of Work Review (2019), Pacific Affairs (guest co-editor with Brenda S.A. Yeoh, 2018), Studies in Nepali History and Society (2016, 2019), Refugee Resettlement in the United States: Language, Pedagogy and Politics (UK: Multilingual Matters, 2015). Her monograph Surviving the Sanctuary City: Ordinary Suffering and Asylum-seeking Work among Nepali New Yorkers is in contract with the University of Washington Press. She is currently researching on Nepali student-migration to Japan (awarded JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists, 2019–2021). 「 Surviving the Sanctuary City: Ordinary Suffering and Asylum-seeking Work among Nepali New Yorkers 」 This presentation is an overview of my upcoming monograph⁠—Surviving the Sanctuary City⁠—an ethnographically derived, situated analysis of suffering and seeking asylum in the 21st century United States. The paper highlights how asylum-seeking fuses the intense and the performative with the repetitive and the mundane. Nepalis often described the experience of this merging as “making paper” (kaagaz banaune), referring to drawn out bureaucratic processes, and “suffering” (dukkha) as they prepared and ultimately delivered their asylum testimonies. I argue that the consequences of combining these seemingly disjointed experiences are far-reaching, including a rise in interior immigration enforcement; production of new migrant legalities, including temporalization of labor; and legalized formation of precarious claimant-workers. The paper reveals that the work of applying for asylum extends beyond the mere legal realm to which it is conventionally consigned. Asylum seeking, including the documentation and bureaucratic

2019 | Asian Migration | Derek Sheridan

Derek Sheridan Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica Biography Derek Sheridan is Assistant Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica. His research interests include China-Africa connections, migration and transnationalism, ethics, inequality, political economy, race, semiotics, knowledge production, global imaginaries, (global) China, and East Africa (Tanzania). His first project, Chinese Migrant Entrepreneurs and the Interpersonal Ethics of Global Inequality in Tanzania, is based on seventeen months of ethnographic fieldwork studying the everyday lives of migrant Chinese entrepreneurs in Tanzania. The book will examine how Chinese expatriates and ordinary Tanzanians negotiate a “South-South relationship” through the interpersonal ethics of social interactions. A second project concerns the circulation of martial arts culture between East Asia and Africa, and its influence on subjectivities and cultural production (including film) in Tanzania. 「 Wachina, Wahindi, and the Vanishing Figure of “Asian” Intermediaries in South–South Imaginaries 」 What does being “Chinese” in Africa mean vis-a-vis other “foreign” identities in Africa? Based on seventeen months of fieldwork in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, I explore how different Tanzanians compare and contrast Wachina (Chinese) to other kinds of foreigners. While China–Africa discourses have been predominated by comparisons between China and “the West,” the experience of Chinese can also be compared to the experience of the Wahindi (South Asians) and other “middlemen” on the East African coast. I focus on the case of Chinese wholesale traders in the Kariakoo market of Dar es Salaam, who are analogous to other trading intermediaries who compete for control of the trade in manufactured goods from China to Africa, and resemble longer histories of communities whose positions have waxed and waned relative to other communities within trading hierarchies. I argue these analogies and the experience of migrants in particular can help elucidate how the figure of the “Asian” migrant in Africa has long mediated

2019 | Asian Migration | Tansen Sen

Tansen Sen NYU Shanghai Biography Tansen Sen is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Global Asia, NYU Shanghai. He received his MA from Peking University and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in Asian history and has done extensive research on China and other Asian countries. 「 Who was Atchew? Examining the Origin Myth of the Chinese Indian Community 」 TBD #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube CONTACT US Email: cga@nyu.edu Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032 WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA Address: 1555 Century Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China. © 2019 All Rights Reserved © 2019 All Rights Reserved ON THE SITE About Us People Events News Publications Research Projects Database #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube MAIN LINKS New York Shanghai Abu Dhabi             CONTACT US       Email: cga@nyu.edu       Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032       WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA       Address: 1555 Century Avenue,       Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China.

2019 | Asian Migration | Cheryl Schmitz

Cheryl Schmitz NYU Shanghai Biography Cheryl Schmitz is a Global Perspectives on Society Teaching Fellow at NYU Shanghai. Schmitz takes an ethnographic approach to explore the meaning of Chinese globalization, looking specifically at connections between the People’s Republic of China and the African continent. She conducted extended fieldwork with Chinese businesses in Angola, which resulted in a study of everyday encounters among various international actors brought together under a controversial Chinese-funded program for Angolan postwar reconstruction. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, the Journal of Material Culture, and Concrete Flux. Her broader research interests include cultural and linguistic translation, work and consumerism, and anti-imperialist politics. Prior to joining NYU Shanghai, Schmitz taught at the University of California, Berkeley and at Zhangjiagang Foreign Language School in Jiangsu Province. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (2011–2014), the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2016–2017), and grants from UC Berkeley. 「 Work Without Life: The Value of Moneymaking Among Chinese Migrants in Angola 」 In the early 2000s, following the end of Angola’s 27-year-long civil war, China emerged as a crucial source of funding for national reconstruction, and hundreds of Chinese enterprises began operations in the country. Analyzing material from fieldwork conducted in 2013-2014 at a Chinese provincial-level state-owned construction firm, I explore how Chinese workers and managers in Luanda conceptualized a distinction between work and life. Chinese employees at the company often described their experience in Angola as “only work, no life.” In the context of life at the company, even practices ordinarily deemed pleasurable, such as drinking or singing karaoke, became routinized and obligatory. Attending to the everyday experiences of Chinese men and women working in Angola, I show how the line between labor and leisure was constantly blurred, while

2019 | Asian Migration | Shieko Reto

Shieko Reto Freelance Artist Biography Shieko Reto (She, her, hers) co-founded the urban art collective Sembur with Style (Spray with Style) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As a freelance artist, she has been engaged in both advertising and advocacy work, especially with NGOs confronting issues experienced by migrant and sex workers and LGBT people, including HIV/AIDS awareness. She edits OBL (OneBigLongkang), a zine based on her own lived experience as a trans woman in Malaysia. As a grantee of the Asian Public Intellectuals Fellowship (2013–2014) from the Nippon Foundation, Shieko dedicated her time to doing research with transgender communities in the Philippines and Japan. Her art has been shown in exhibitions throughout Malaysia, including the 49th Merdeka Mural (National Art Gallery of Malaysia, 2010), as well as Not That Balai (Lost Generation Space, 2005). Her work was also listed as part of the Seksualiti Merdeka Festival, which got banned in 2012. In 2013, Shieko participated in the Singapore Biennale, where she increased awareness regarding issues faced by trans women in Malaysia. She was selected to participate in the 2017 Artist at Risk Program of Perpetuum Mobile for a year in Helsinki. At present, she is currently experimenting with short animation using pixel art and also performing in Kuala Lumpur with her band Tingtongketz. 「 “What Are You Doing Here? When Are You Going to Fly?”: The Trans Experience in Malaysia 」 For the trans community in Malaysia, migration can only be a crucial topic. In this presentation, I narrate the challenges of living as trans from my own experience and within my interactions with fellow trans women in and out of the country. Since 1984, after the first fatwas came out prohibiting transgender identities, many trans women have sought to find a better place to affirm their lives. In countries like

2019 | Asian Migration | Prempreeda Pramoj Na Ayutthaya

Prempreeda Pramoj Na Ayutthaya Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand Biography Born in Bangkok, Prempreeda Pramoj Na Ayutthaya (She, her, hers) holds an MA in Social Development from Chiang Mai University, and an MA in Health Social Sciences from Mahidol University. Both her master’s theses were concerned with rights for sexual minorities, especially transgender people. One of the founding working group members of Asia Pacific Transgender Network, she has worked with various local and international NGOs to assist key affected populations as regards HIV prevention and care, in particular, as a community representative and liaison for an HIV Prevention Trial for the Thai Ministry of Public Health and the US Center for Disease Control. At UNESCO Bangkok, she has served as HIV/AIDS National Programme Officer. Prem has lectured on issues of sexuality and gender issues at several universities. Currently, she is Vice President of Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand, and is organizing her own project “Be Visible Asia,” which aims to reach various groups among the LGBT, particularly bisexual and non-binary people, and trans people and their partners. 「 Trans Migrants and Refugees in Thailand: An Intersectional Perspective 」 Thailand is home to 3.7 million migrants, including an estimated 130,000 refugees and asylum seekers. The country is however not a state party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, and lacks domestic legislation protecting the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. As such, their presence is considered to be in violation of Thailand’s domestic immigration law and are subject to detention and deportation (Fortify Rights, March 2016). The myth circulated by media about Thailand as an “LGBT paradise” has brought numbers of transgender migrants and refugees to the country. There are trans women from Laos and Cambodia for example who come to Thailand expecting to be received by an environment more benevolent to

2019 | Asian Migration | Ayesha Omer

Ayesha Omer New York University Biography Ayesha Omer is a PhD candidate in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. Her research explores questions of ecology, sovereignty, and technological mediation across global infrastructures, with particular area foci on Pakistan and China. 「 The Digital New Silk Road: A Study of the Pak-China Fiber Optic Cable 」 TBD #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube CONTACT US Email: cga@nyu.edu Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032 WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA Address: 1555 Century Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China. © 2019 All Rights Reserved © 2019 All Rights Reserved ON THE SITE About Us People Events News Publications Research Projects Database #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube MAIN LINKS New York Shanghai Abu Dhabi             CONTACT US       Email: cga@nyu.edu       Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032       WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA       Address: 1555 Century Avenue,       Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China.

2019 | Asian Migration | David Ludden

David Ludden New York University Biography David Ludden teaches Asian History at NYU, where he is Chair of the History Department and founding director of the New York Center for Global Asia. His specialization is in agrarian history and the transformation of rural environments from ancient to modern times. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978, served on the faculty there from 1981 to 2007. He served as President of the Association for Asian Studies in 2002. 「 Mobility, Migration, and Money in Cowrie Country, Sylhet 」 The social, economic, and political history of the Brahmaputra-Meghna River Basin—encompassing all of what is now Bangladesh—was shaped over many centuries by the slow but steady migration of people from west to east across the Gangetic Basin. Peasants came in search of land to farm, speculators came to control farm production, and military men came to control over strategic sites of political authority, where they could profit from, if not control, profits from farming and trade overseas into the Bay of Bengal and inland over mountains into Burma and China. All these migrant settlers entered a land-and-waterscape dominated by tribal groups engaged in hunting, fishing, shifting cultivation, and trade, who never bowed down to any Gangetic ruler, who never used metal coins that symbolized Gangetic authority, and who conducted commercial exchange only with cowrie shells, which traveled routes across the Indian Ocean from the Maldives and across Bengal through the mountains into China. Records of the East India Company provide our first close-up view of the interaction migrant power and mobile social life in this region at the end of the eighteenth century. #NYUShanghai Facebook Twitter Instagram Weibo Youtube CONTACT US Email: cga@nyu.edu Phone Number: +86 (21) 20595032 WeChat: NYUShanghaiCGA Address: 1555 Century Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, China.

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