CAPSTRANS CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS 2005

• INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION OF ASIA SCHOLARS (ICAS) 4

CAPSTRANS sponsored four panels at the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS4) Conference in Shanghai from 20-24 August.

Our people in Shanghai

Shanghai river and city view

1. “Transforming Labour in Asia” (panel organised by Dr Tim Scrase)

Over the past decade, the intensification of globalization, coupled with neo-liberal economic policies and programs, have had a dramatic effect on labour and production and a direct impact on the lives of workers and their families throughout Asia. While many workers have re-skilled and found jobs in the new economy, countless others have become further impoverished and marginalised, working in precarious occupations at piecemeal rates of pay and with poor conditions. Radical changes in state policies concerning trade, labour protection, and other economic policies have resulted in significant shifts in labour practices and labour relations. In this context, the aim of this panel is to critically interrogate and compare labour relations and practices in five areas: garment manufacturing in Asia; ports and docks labour in Malaysia and India; artisan and craft workers in India; call centre workers in India; and migrant workers in China.

Papers:

Panel organised by Dr TimScrase, second from right

• Prof Adrian Vickers and Dr Vicky Crinis “Approaches to the study of the garment industry in the Asia-Pacific”
• Dr Tim Scrase “The Poverty of Markets and the Marketing of Poverty: Exploitation, Innovation and Survival Skills of Asian Artisans”
• Mr Douglas Hill “Containers, Contractors and Casualisation: Labour Relations in the Port Sector in Malaysia and India ”
• Dr Diane van den Broek “T ransitions and Temporal Trade Offs within call centre Offshoring to India”

2. Problematising transnational histories: Relocating the colonial worker (panel organised by Dr Julia Martinez)

The proliferation of transnational histories coincides with the debate over the usefulness of the 'nation' as an analytical category and a move beyond the study of single, bounded nations. A range of different historical themes is now called 'transnational', but it is not always clear what that term might mean. Some examine comparisons and connections between nations (or their precursors) while maintaining the nation as an unproblematic category. Others challenge the construction of the nation through border-land studies. Historical subjects who were previously termed migrants, might now be referred to as transnationals. Concerns have been raised, however, that in writing transnational histories, we might inadvertently exclude those people whose lives were not obviously transnational. The use of biography as a means of exploring the lives of transnational agents moving between nations runs the risk of privileging the elite, whose wealth allowed them greater mobility. In postcolonial literature, where transnationalism includes the spread of ideas or culture, the privileging of transnational imperial discourse remains equally problematic. This panel engages with these issues by relocating the colonial worker into our analysis of the transnational, and considering how the study of workers might complicate or challenge current understandings of transnational history.

Papers:

Presenters, from left, Claire Lowrie, Julia Martinez and Vicki Crinis

• Julia Martinez “Indonesian indentured workers at transnational agents?”
• Claire Lowrie “A Transnational Labour of Love? Discourse and Domestic Servants in Darwin and Singapore, 1900 – 1942”
• Vicki Crinis “Transnational Histories: Migrant Sex Workers in Colonial Malaya”

3. Organizing Transnationally: Southeast Asian Women's Activism (panel organised by Dr Lenore Lyons)

Recent scholarship on women's activism has focused on the emergence of what is often referred to as ‘transnational feminism'. It is a term that has particular currency in studies of globalisation, where it is used in relation to migration (transnational flows); the post-colonial state (transnationalism); sub-altern/diasporic studies (the trans/national); and the movement of global capital (transnational corporations). It is of no surprise, then, that feminist theorists have begun to examine the utility of the concept of ‘transnationalism' in their own work. Despite this burgeoning interest, however, few scholars have addressed the meanings and practices of the ‘transnational' in the context of women's organizing. Contributors to this panel explore the tensions surrounding the term ‘transnational feminism' through case studies of women's activism in Southeast Asia.

Papers:

Panel organised by Dr Lenore Lyons, second from right

• Lenore Lyons “The limits of transnational activism: Organizing for migrant worker rights in Malaysia and Singapore”
• Mina Roces “The Catholic Nun as Transnational Feminist: Filipino Nuns in Local and Western Spaces”
• Theresa Devasahayam “Advocating for Foreign Domestic Worker Issues: The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore”

4. Asian Cinema of Perseverance: Local and Global Responses to Hollywood 's Hegemony (panel organized by Brian Yecies)

This panel investigates industrial, political and cultural aspects of Bangladeshi, Chinese and Korean cinema and their hegemonic connections with Hollywood in a global context. Brian Yecies' paper initiates the panel by exploring the Motion Picture Export Association of America's historical obsession with the Korean market and its angst toward Korea's protectionist screen quota policy for domestic films. Ironically, the increase of directly distributed US films in Korea – an essential part of Hollywood 's overseas expansion campaign – has coincided with the rising success of the Korean cinema. Raju Zakir Hossain's paper expands on this local/global theme by offering a case study of Bangladeshi popular cinema, especially its challenge of constructing and disseminating a ‘national' identity in/of/through a local film industry. He examines the complex dimensions of a medium-sized vernacular-language national-popular film industry that almost ignores the Hollywood film industry. Ae-Gyung Shim's study focuses on Korea's Golden Age of the 1960s and the so-called “Dark Age” of the 1970s, exploring the strategies local producers and directors developed in order to survive during Park Chung Hee's 18-year dictatorial rule. She argues that an array of official and unofficial industrial practices from a cohort of Korean filmmakers formed the foundation for the success of Korea's contemporary cinema. Finally, Rui Zhang's presentation will focus on a recurring theme in the films of a contemporary Chinese filmmaker, Feng Xiaogang, who has made many box-office hits since 1996. The box-office success of his films in the Chinese domestic film market reveals the underlying cultural and sociopolitical factors that have contributed to the popularity of Chinese films at the expense of Hollywood films. Collectively, these four papers contemplate how nation-states have attempted to define their spheres of influence and maintain their powers over industrial, political and cultural affairs in the face of encroachments on their sovereignty by American – Hollywood – forces.

Papers:

• Brian Yecies “Flexing Muscular Authority: Hollywood 's Strategic Pressures on the Korean Screen Quota System, 1966-2005”
• Raju Zakir Hossain “Popular Cinema and Nationalist Discourse in Contemporary Bangladesh”
• Ae-Gyung Shim “Korean Cinema of Perseverance: Filmmaking Under Park Chung Hee, 1961-1979”
• Rui Zhang “Images of the US in Feng Xiaogang's Popular Cinema”