RIKK - Centre for Womens and Gender Research University of Iceland

EDDA Center of Excellence University of Iceland

NIAS Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
Gendering Asia Network

8
th
Annual Nordic NIAS Council Conference

A Multitude of Encounters with Asia
Gender Perspectives
University of Iceland, Reykjavik 13-15 October 2014
&
Nordic & International PhD Course
University of Iceland, Reykjavik 16-17 October 2014

1
ST
CALL FOR CONFERENCE PAPERS




One of the great challenges in increased relations with Asia through business, culture, life
biographies, historical relations as well as ITC networks is to make the importance of
gender visible. Encounters have become increasingly, mutually interrelated and perhaps
even dependent in multiple ways. Economically encounters are wide-ranging with
financial decisions made in one part of the world affecting the real lives of many in the
other part of the world. In the political sphere the need for enhancing mutual
understanding and tolerance grows every day. How can we understand these multiple
links, interactions and encounters and how are they gendered? Some encounters are
vividly obvious and others are less prominently visible, or perhaps consciously or
unconsciously made obscure. How is knowledge of encounters being produced, by whom
and for what purposes?

This conference on macro and micro level encounters with Asia, including encounters
between Asia and the Nordic countries, takes the traveling of theories, concepts, ideas,
practices, products and people as its starting point and asks

1) How gender and gender relations play into, create, and are created in the course
of a multitude of encounters
2) How transnational feminism has produced knowledge in the context of
globalization

This years NNC conference has sprung out of the activity of the Gendering Asia Network
- a research group in the Nordic region that has been dealing with the following
questions:

What are the implications of conceptualizing and analyzing gender/Asia?
How do we become aware of, identify and conceptualize the invisible workings of
gender norms and power relations as they manifest themselves in all fields of Asia
politics, economics, culture and society as such?

These basic questions also underlie the conference focus on encounters with Asia.

A Multitude of encounters with Asia Gender perspectives at University of Iceland, Reykjavik, 13-
17 October 2014




Keynote Speakers
The following speakers will inspire our proceedings:

Kathy Davis, Senior Research Fellow, Sociology, VU University, Amsterdam
Mary E. John, Senior Fellow, Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi
Wil Burghoorn, Senior Lecturer, Social Anthropology, School of Global Studies,
University of Gothenburg

More Keynote speakers TBA


Papers on encounters with Asia from a gender perspective are invited on topics
such as for instance:

Families in flux
Gendered mobility in Asia
Intra-action and communication
Travelling theory and cultural translation
Experiencing technology intra-active construction of identity and the body
Politics of memory/disasters, trauma and recovery
Literary relations and the post-colonial
Asia and the Arctic relations
Japan and the Nordic in focus
Chinese Confucian culture constructions
Asia in the Nordic Nordic in Asia
Emotions in Asia-Europe Encounters
Nordic studies of gender/Asia
Other topics are also welcome


Special session on Travelling Theory and Cultural Translation
A special session on Travelling theory and cultural translation is being convened by
Professor Min Dongchao, Shanghai University, who is currently EU Marie Curie guest
professor at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies.

Transnational feminism has challenged Eurocentric, colonialist perspectives of
knowledge production that have disregarded local knowledge. Focusing on how feminism
has flowed around the world, scholars of transnational feminism have argued that
knowledge production takes place through multiple related contexts. These contexts
acknowledge the roles played by, and the interaction between, different localities in the
process of globalization, and that flows of knowledge generate different meanings in
different places. From this analytical perspective, feminisms in different places not only
reflect, but are also active and explicit participants in processes of globalization,
engaging with and producing cross-border cultural, political, and economic flows.

Research has shown that gender theory has flowed far more easily from North to South
or from West to East, particularly from the US to other parts of the world, whereas flows
in other directions are practically non-existent. There are many invisible discursive
trajectories that link the development of gender theories and movements in the world
that have so far been ignored. This panel will focus on the role of hidden sets of power
relations involved in these processes of theory travelling and cultural translation.

Paper abstracts for the session are welcome.


A Multitude of encounters with Asia Gender perspectives at University of Iceland, Reykjavik, 13-
17 October 2014




Participation
Conference participation, including participation in the special session, is open to scholars
and doctoral candidates in the social sciences and humanities.
We encourage contributions with emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives.
It is possible for a limited number of participants to attend the conference without
presenting a paper, or to attend only the keynote speeches.


Conference Fee and Accommodation:
The conference fee for paper presenters is 250 Euro, which includes accommodation
during the conference, as well as reception, conference dinner and lunches.

If you wish to attend the conference without presenting a paper the conference fee is
100 Euro and does not include reception, conference dinner and lunches.

Accommodation will be provided at a hotel near the conference site. More information will
follow on the conference website soon.


Deadlines:
International researchers working on Asia in any social science and humanities discipline
are invited to submit abstracts for papers. Each abstract should not exceed 300 words.

30 June 2014: Deadline for submitting abstract (maximum 300 words)
11 August 2014: Acceptance of abstracts by Academic Committee
22 September 2014: Deadline for submitting the full paper and paying the
conference fee

Abstracts and full papers should be submitted via the conference website where all
practical information about the conference also is available:


http://gendernnc2014.niasconferences.net/


PhD Course Doing gender/Asia studies
The conference will be combined with a PhD course where doctoral candidates will
present and discuss their research projects with senior researchers as well as with fellow
doctoral candidates.

This PhD course will focus on the methodology of gender/Asia studies that is the study
of the toolboxes of gender/Asia studies. Taking the questions, problems, dilemmas and
decisions of the individual research project as the point of departure the focus will be on
clarifying processes of knowledge production.

The course can be taken as a 7.5 ECTS credit course (to be approved by the individual
students home university/institution). To receive the credits, doctoral students must
attend the conference on October 13-15, the PhD course on October 16-17, submit and
A Multitude of encounters with Asia Gender perspectives at University of Iceland, Reykjavik, 13-
17 October 2014


present a paper (10-12 pages) which draws on the course readings, and give comments
to a fellow PhD students paper.

Guidelines for paper preparation and a reading list for the PhD course will be available by
mid-August.

Doctoral candidates are also encouraged to present a paper at the conference. This paper
may not be similar to the methodology paper prepared for the PhD course. Students
wishing to present a paper at the conference and to attend the PhD course must submit
two abstracts. The abstract for the PhD course should provide a short description of the
topic of the PhD dissertation.

Fee and Accommodation PhD Course
The fee for the conference and PhD course is 350 Euro, which includes conference fee,
accommodation, reception, lunches and dinner (according to the programme).
Accommodation is provided for 5 nights from 13 to 17 October. More information on this
will follow on the conference website shortly.


For further information please contact
Katrine Herold, Project Coordinator, NIAS, Katrine.herold@nias.ku.dk, or
Rakel Adolphsdttir, Project Manager, RIKK Centre for Womens and Gender
Research, University of Iceland, rakela@hi.is


Or go to the conference website
http://gendernnc2014.niasconferences.net