Events

This workshop is jointly organized by Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, Asia Research Institute and the Migration Cluster of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore.

In recent years the impact (new) migrants make on the multicultrual and multiracial dimensions of cities in Asia and Europe has featured prominently on the research agenda. While this has led to an efflorescence of highly insightful publications little effort has been made to develop a collaborative perspective. The East-West divide, in that sense, sees itself replicated in research agendas which all too easily agree on ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’. With this joint conference we wish to argue differently. Bringing together researchers from two prominent universities, one located in the East (National University of Singapore) and one in the West (Humboldt University of Berlin), will allow for refection and dialogue where it concerns each other’s’ research findings.

Diversity relates to a particular quality of ethnically, religiously and socially complex societies and it increasingly serves as an analytical tool to describe and understand the processes taking place in them. It often refers to the broader question of how international migration and migrant transnationalism effect changes in contemporary societies but also draws attention to co-existence and tolerance towards physical, mental or lifestyle difference. The challenge is to adequately analyse people’s experiences of diversity and its consequences while not privileging one dimension of difference over the other.

Demographic configurations of diversity produce new constellations of materialities (for example, things that people bring along when migrating; different foods; arrangements and designs of space around them) and relate to diversifications of practices (religious ceremonies, sport activities, ways of dressing, or organisation of work). Encounters with diversity involve cognitive and sensory experiences. Encounters with ‘otherness’ make people not only conscious of difference but also enable them to reflect their subjective positions on gender, race, ethnicity, class or age. Unconsciously, we may feel attracted or irritated by smells of different foods; the changing aesthetics of daily life may disrupt or enrich our cultural repertoires. New alliances and solidarities may build up between different individuals and groups, but also patterns of inequality are shifting when diversity invokes discrimination or violence. All these processes and everyday strategies are embedded in various institutional settings, such as schools or hospitals, and they impact multi-scalar policies that directly or indirectly influence people’s status and possibilities of articulation of power.

The contributors to the conference apply an intersectional and/or post-colonial perspective to move the academic debate and research on diversity beyond the racial and ethnic lens. An intersectionality approach to diversity enables the conference participants to focus on categorical complexity, and considers age, gender, and class as fleeting and inseparable from migration-driven diversities of ethnicity and race. Furthermore, a postcolonial approach assumes a relational, dynamic, and contextual understanding of inequality, power, and dominance, which is under permanent “negotiation. Both approaches highlight the importance of relations of inequality, and their institutional contexts. Contemporary and historical examples from all continents are welcomed.

PROGRAM

Click here for the PROGRAM. For more information, please visit the conference website at https://www.projekte.hu-berlin.de/de/transformig/events/diversity-encounters/diversity-encounters

CONTACT DETAILS

Email | transformig@sowi.hu-berlin.de