Events

MODERATOR

Prof Francis L. Collins, University of Waikato, New Zealand

PROGRAM

 
ABSTRACT

It has been argued that stalled international mobility and the rise of economic nationalism and xenophobia against migrants in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic spell the end of the age of global migrations. For some time to come, devastated economies and unprecedented high rates of high unemployment will be less dependent on migrant workers to fill seasonal and skill shortages in the labour force in ‘a reversal of a decades-long trend’ (Gamlen, 2020). In this roundtable, contributors to the forthcoming Handbook of Transnationalism (Yeoh and Collins, 2022) discuss the impact of these developments for transnationalism scholarship and migration futures. As a key conceptualisation in migration studies that came into efflorescence at a time of increasing globalisation, transnationalism gave rise to a richly textured research agenda for migration studies that went beyond “the nation as container”. The roundtable reflects on the future of this agenda in the light of a slow-down in international travel and the rise of different ways of conducting transnational life.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Biao Xiang is currently Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford University, as well as Director at the Max Planck Institute. Xiang began his scholarly career by studying migrant workers in Beijing, and subsequently broadened his focus to high-tech Indian “migrant labor” in Australia, and then later still to the subject of unskilled labor migration from China to Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Among his many well-regarded publications, Global ‘Body Shopping’: An Indian International Labor System in the Information Technology Industry (in English) won the Anthony Leeds Prize in 2008, and “Predatory Princes and Princely Peddlers: The State and International Labor Migration Brokers in China” (also in English), won the William L. Holland Prize in 2012. His 2020 volume Self as Method (in Chinese, 把自己作为方法), has already sold over 150,000 copies and was voted “China’s most impactful book for 2020”.

Francis L. Collins is Professor of Geography and Director of the National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis at the University of Waikato. His research centres on international migration and includes projects exploring international students and urban transformation, higher education and the globalisation of cities, labour migration, marginalisation and exploitation, time and youth migration, and aspirations and desires. Francis is the author of Global Asian City: Migration, Desire and the Politics of Encounter in 21st Century Seoul (Wiley 2018) and co-editor of Intersections of Inequality, Migration and Diversification (Palgrave 2020) and Aspiration, Desire and the Drivers of Migration (Routledge 2020).

Heather A. Horst is Director of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. A sociocultural anthropologist by training, she researches material culture and the mediation of social relations through digital media and technology. Her books focused upon these themes include The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication (Horst and Miller, 2006); Hanging Around, Messing Around and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media (Ito, et. Al 2010); Digital Anthropology (Horst and Miller, eds. 2012); Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practices (Pink, Horst, et. Al. 2015); The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography (Hjorth, Horst, Galloway and Bell, Eds. 2016); The Moral Economy of Mobile Phones: Pacific Island Perspectives (Foster and Horst, eds. 2018) and Location Technologies in International Context (Wilken, Goggin and Horst, eds. 2019). Her current research examines the circulation of music in Melanesia through mobile technologies. She is also developing new work examining the Fijian fashion system as well as automated decision making.

Jolynna Sinanan has an interdisciplinary background in anthropology and development studies and her research focuses on digital media practices in relation to regionally comparative mobilities, family relationships, work and gender. She completed her PhD in Arts (Development Studies) in 2013 and since then, she has developed an international research profile around comparative ethnographic studies of digital practices and infrastructures in relation to intergenerational mobilities across cultural and social contexts in the Asia-Pacific, the Caribbean and South Asia. Her current region of focus is Nepal where she is examining mobile media and mobile livelihoods in the Everest tourism industry. Her first monograph Social Media in Trinidad (UCL Press, 2017), is the first book which combines a more conventional anthropological study based on ethnography with social media research in the Caribbean region. The book is part of the Why We Post series with UCL Press, which also includes her co-authored volumes Visualising Facebook and How the World Changed Social Media. Jolynna is also the co-author of Digital Media Practices in Households (Hjorth et. al. Amsterdam University Press, 2020) and Webcam (Miller and Sinanan, Polity, 2014). Alongside publishing books, Jolynna’s research has appeared in high impact journals in media studies and anthropology including the New Media and Society, the International Journal of Communication and Ethnos.

Valentina Mazzucato is Professor of Globalisation and Development and she directs the research programme on Globalisation, Transnationalism and Development, Maastricht University, Netherlands. Her expertise is on migration studied from a transnational perspective. In particular she studies the effects of migration between Africa and Europe on migrants and their families and communities back home. Mazzucato has led 5 international, multi-year projects on transnational migration between Africa and Europe in which she collaborates with European and African universities. She is Executive Board member of the Maastricht Center for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE). She is on the Steering Committee of NWO-WOTRO Science for Global Development and a panel member of the ERC Advanced Grants.

ARI20 ANNIVERSARY ROUNDTABLE SERIES

The ARI20 Anniversary Roundtable Series marks the founding of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore in 2001. The series celebrates our current scholarship while exploring how these themes and topics continue to inspire new trajectories of research. The ARI20 Anniversary Roundtable Series concludes with the convening of a final roundtable featuring the Institute’s current research cluster leaders, who will discuss ARI’s role in charting future humanities and social science research on Asia. While the virtual roundtable format arises from pandemic-related necessity, it will enable ARI alumni and partners around the world to join the discussion on the Institute’s research directions and prospects.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this webinar has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to aritm@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the webinar.