Graduate student conference tackles humanities and industrial relations in Asia

Presenters from China, England and across North America will showcase cutting-edge research on a wide range of areas, from the humanities to industrial relations, at the upcoming Changing Asia in the Globalizing World: Boundaries, Identity and Transnationalism conference.

YCAR third annual Graduate Student Conference posterThe conference will take place May 1 and 2 at Glendon Manor, Glendon campus, 2275 Bayview Ave. It is the third international graduate student conference organized by graduate associates of the York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR).

The conference presents graduate student research that speaks to ways of approaching, complicating and problematizing the category of Asia and Asian diaspora through critical frameworks from a broad range of disciplines. This multidisciplinary conference is also a forum for scholars to share knowledge and methodologies in researching Asia.

Danièle Bélanger of Université Laval will deliver the keynote lecture, “Transnationalism From Within and Unbound Mobility,” on May 1 at 9:30am.

Bélanger will speak on how our scientific attention and gaze on migration and transnationalism often limits our understanding of these phenomena. This includes why scholarly work needs to pay greater attention to how communities in developing Asia, characterized by a mobility habitus, experience transnationalism from within and how a focus on international migration and transnationalism prevents us from understanding mobility on a continuum. These insights are based on her fieldwork in Vietnam with rural communities that have strong and recent transnational connections and with rural-to-urban migrants working in the sex industry.

A sociologist and demographer with a special interest in Asia, Bélanger studies different aspects of women’s lives in developing countries, such as Vietnam and China.

The conference is supported by the York Centre for Asian Research; the Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation; the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies; the Faculty of Graduate Studies; the Principal’s Office of Glendon College; the Graduate Association of Geography Students; and the following York University units: political science, humanities, geography, history, études françaises, and social and political thought.

Registration is free and everyone is welcome. RSVP at ycargrst@yorku.ca.

For more information, view the conference program.