Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Tabea Bork-Hüffer, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. 

ABSTRACT

For a long time, migration has been largely absent from the global arena. This has changed significantly in recent years. The “migration-development mantra” has entered the discourse and new processes such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and the United Nations High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development (UN-HLD) have been established. In addition, migrants’ rights organisations have started their own parallel and separate events such as the World Social Forum on Migration and formed global alliances.

It is no coincidence that migrants’ rights activists from Asia and particularly Southeast Asia are highly visible and active in all of these processes. This is due to the high level of organizing they have achieved from the ground up and on the regional level. The lecture will highlight the role of activists and “networks of networks” from Asia and the formation of transnational political spaces in which political attitudes, advocacy, organizing strategies, framing of political issues and existing political cleavages can be diffused.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Stefan Rother is a Researcher and Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg, Germany. His research focus is on international migration, global governance, social movements, regional integration and non-/post-Western theories of international relations. Until spring 2014, Dr Rother was editorial manager of the International Quarterly for Asian Studies and Senior Researcher at the Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute for socio-cultural research. He has successfully completed his doctorate in summer 2012 with the thesis “Diffusion in transnational political spaces: Political activism of Philippine labor migrants in Hong Kong”. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Southeast Asia as well as participant observation at global governance fora and civil society parallel and counter-events at the UN, ILO, ASEAN and WTO-level. Stefan Rother has recently published articles in Third World Quarterly, Cooperation and Conflict, European Journal of East Asian Studies, International Migration, Migration Studies, the German Journal for Political science (ZPol) and several edited volumes. He is a board member of the German Association for Asian Studies (DGA) and speaker of the working group on migration in the German political science association (AK Migrationspolitik in der DVPW). Stefan Rother is also a trained journalist and has more than 20 years of experience as editor and freelance writer for several daily and weekly newspapers.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. We would greatly appreciate if you RSVP Sharon via email: arios@nus.edu.sg