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Lecture:

Power Geometries of Global Parenting:
Raising Children in the Stratified Emotional Field

Building on Doreen Massey’s insight, I coined the concept “the power geometry of global parenting” to describe the rising class inequality and emotional stratification as a condition and a consequence of “global parenting”—the repertoire and practice of childrearing are increasingly transformed by the transnational flows of idea, goods and people. Drawing on in-depth interviews with middle-class and working-class parents in Taiwan, this paper investigates childrearing as an emotional field in which social class shapes parents’ differential relations with globalization and divergent styles of childrearing. Parents with class privilege not only cross borders more easily, but they also have more access to transnational cultural and emotional resources. Moreover, the hyper-mobility of some families, whether in the geographic, cultural or emotional landscape, can hurt the life opportunities of those who are trapped locally.

Dr. Pei-Chia Lan is Professor of Sociology at National Taiwan University. Her award-winning book Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan was published by Duke University Press in 2006. She is working on her second book, tentatively entitled Global Parenting Divides, which examines how ethnic Chinese parents in the US and Taiwan negotiate cultural differences and class inequality to raise children in the contexts of globalization and immigration.
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Panel Discussion:

Emerging Agendas in Migration Research

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This workshop is organized by: Dr. Rachel Silvey, Associate Professor, Department of Geography & Planning, University of Toronto; Dr. Danièle Bélanger, Professeure titulaire, Départment de géographie, Université Laval; and Dr. Hae Yeon Choo, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto.

EVENTS IN HONOUR OF THE MEMORY OF DOREEN MASSEY

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MMMMM...Gendai Kitchen is a year-long seasonal subscription service and series of event-based responsive programming. With
food-inspired artist multiples, responsive performances, and critical texts, the program unfolds over the course of this four-season
cycle, with one artist multiple delivery and corresponding launch event each season.

Myung-Sun Kim is an artist and arts programmer based in Toronto. In her practice she examines the evolution of culinary practices and food culture in relation to historical events. During her Winter Island Artist Residency at Artspace Gibaltrar Point she faciliated workshops on alchemy, magic and rice wine, and hosted Haunting In The Flesh, an experimental feast of food and research on the evolving cultural culinary practices and cuisine of Korea, exploring food as a way to tell stories of war, migration, colonialism, resilience, and healing. She has a BFA in Sculpture & Installation from Ontario College of Art & Design and an MFA from York University.

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• 70 min screening of Living with Memories (2015). English subtitle.
Directed by Doi Toshikuni. For more information on the filmmaker, go to: http://doi-toshikuni.net/e/doc/pf.html

• Presentation by Kim Puja
Professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and Visiting Professor, Asian Institute

History of the former “comfort women,” or the survivors of the wartime Japanese military comfort system, otherwise known as the military sex enslavement (1937-1945), and their ongoing struggles for justice since the 1991 public testimony of Kim Hak-sun, have inspired many writers, artists, filmmakers, and scholars throughout the world. Belatedly released in 2015, Doi Toshikuni’s Living with Memories chronicles the everyday life and thoughts of several women survivors since twenty years ago, when the filmmaker began covering the issue in 1994. The workshop will feature a partial screening of the film and a presentation by Professor Kim Puja, the historian of gender and colonialism and longtime “comfort women” redress activist in Japan and Korea. Professor Kim will discuss the film’s historical significance and the special meaning it holds in contrast to other “comfort women” cultural representations. Doi has generously donated the film to the University of Toronto community.

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Decentering Citizenship follows three groups of Filipina migrants’ struggles to belong in South Korea: factory workers claiming rights as workers, wives of South Korean men claiming rights as mothers, and hostesses at American military clubs who are excluded from claims—unless they claim to be victims of trafficking. Moving beyond laws and policies, Hae Yeon Choo examines how rights are enacted, translated, and challenged in daily life and ultimately interrogates the concept of citizenship.

Choo reveals citizenship as a language of social and personal transformation within the pursuit of dignity, security, and mobility. Her vivid ethnography of both migrants and their South Korean advocates illuminates how social inequalities of gender, race, class, and nation operate in defining citizenship. Decentering Citizenship argues that citizenship emerges from negotiations about rights and belonging between South Koreans and migrants. As the promise of equal rights and full membership in a polity erodes in the face of global inequalities, this decentering illuminates important contestation at the margins of citizenship.

Hae Yeon Choo is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. Her book Decentering Citizenship: Gender, Labor, and Migrant Rights in South Korea (Stanford University Press, 2016) examines how inequalities of gender, race, and class affect migrant rights through a comparative study of three groups of Filipina women in South Korea—factory workers, wives of South Korean men, and club hostesses.

Discussants:

Anna Korteweg is Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Her work problematizes the notion of “immigrant integration” and the ways in which belonging is defined in the intersections of gender, religion, ethnicity and national origin in Western Europe and Canada. Her co-authored book (with Gökçe Yurdakul), Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging, was published by Stanford University Press in 2014.

Jesook Song is Professor at the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto. She is an urban anthropologist of political economy and subject formation in finance, welfare, education, and neoliberalism, focusing on South Korean context. Her books include South Koreans in the Debt Crisis (Duke University Press 2009), Living on Your Own (SUNY Press 2014), New Millennium South Korea (editor, Routldged 2011).

Please join us for the post-event reception to welcome the start of CSK’s new academic year. During the event we will welcome Jesook Song as our interim director for the year. Beverages and food will be provided.

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China’s participation in contemporary globalization has intensified since its entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. As the volume of goods labeled “Made in China” grows, many artifacts “faked in China” have also come into transnational circulation. Meanwhile, numerous domestic actors have sought to transform China from a manufacturer of foreign goods into a creator of its own brands – a nation-branding project best captured by the slogan “From Made in China to Created in China.” These different ways of engaging the globalizing Intellectual Property Rights regime have generated competing visions for the nation, at a time when new media technologies have become the daily means of communication for many Chinese. The stories of counterfeit cultural artifacts such as the shanzhai mobile phones, or “bandit” phones made in informal sectors, prompt us to complicate the dominant narrative of China’s economic rise from the perspective of cultural change.

Fan Yang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She is the author of Faked in China: Nation Branding, Counterfeit Culture, and Globalization (Indiana University Press). Her current research examines how China is imagined in contemporary U.S. media.

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In August 2014, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Nepal. In a speech to parliament he spoke a few sentences in Nepali. To a rapturous reception, he declared that Nepal was a sovereign country and that the Buddha was born in Nepal. This was widely perceived as the opening of a new era in India–Nepal relations. Little more than a year later, Modi had become a villain like no other. How did this happen? What is it about the relationship, and in particular the place of Madhesh within Nepal, that makes it so difficult to handle? I review the emergence of politically sensitive ethnic blocks in Nepal, analogous to similar groupings within India, that will have a deep influence on future developments.

David N. Gellner is Professor of Social Anthropology and a Fellow of All Souls College in the University of Oxford. He has been researching religion, ethnicity, and politics in Nepal since the early 1980s. His edited collection Borderland Lives in Northern South Asia appeared with Duke University Press in 2013.

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A new, independent documentary film by MATSUI Hisako (with English subtitles), “What are you afraid of?” features Prof. Ueno and several other prominent feminists in Japan, and by doing so, shows the 40+ years of history of feminism in Japan. Women’s history was long neglected in Japan, and this film plays an important role in documenting and remembering the earlier efforts of feminists in Japan. This is a rare opportunity to view this independent documentary chronicling the lives of early feminists.
The information on the film can be found here: http://feminism-documentary.com

Q& A: Chizuko Ueno

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10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Arrival and light refreshments
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Presentation

Dr. Un-Chan Chung served as the prime minister of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) during 2009-2010. He has served as the chairman of the Presidential Commission on Shared Growth for Large and Small Companies. In February 2012, he was appointed the first honorary mayor of the Jeju Global Education City (JGEC), whose goal is to reduce the country’s educational trade deficit. He was a professor of Seoul National University (SNU) from 1978 to 2009, serving as the president of the university from July 2002 to July 2006.

Dr. Chung earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at SNU and his master’s degree in economics at Miami University (Ohio). In 1978, he was awarded a doctoral degree in economics from Princeton. Chung returned to Princeton in 2008 as a visiting fellow at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS).

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Poets appear as central characters in two of D. Dilip Kumar’s (1951-) Tamil short stories: first, as a feckless, drunken husband in the 1988 experimental piece “Nikala Marutta Arputam” (“The Miracle that Refused to Happen”), and second, as a romantic, suicidal misfit in the 1992 “Manam Enum Tōṇi Parri.” The title of the latter is the first line of a poem from the Śaiva Tirunāvukkarasar Tēvāram, and is used as part of the moody soundscape of the story, but has little bearing on the actual plot (the author and I have titled the story “Scent of a Woman” in English). I will explore three moments in which poetry appears in these stories. First, in “The Miracle that Refused to Happen,” Mr. James, the protagonist and for all practical purposes the only speaker in the entire story, utters a poem of his own composition towards the end of a disastrous monologue aimed at his wife. Second, James also begins to spout passages from the King James Version of the Psalms, and here I will examine how the Psalms in Tamil carry a very different feel from the same lines in the English of the King James text, and how the passages are used in this instance to manipulate and break down the resolve of his wife. My third example is drawn from “Scent of a Woman.” The story is semi-autobiographical, and the two poems that are featured in it are recited in intimate conversation with the story’s romantic heroine at moments of decisive and critical turns in its very structure. Exploring the several instances in which Dilip Kumar pays homage to the antiquity of the Tamil language and to its literary conventions, I will consider how verse is embedded in prose, what the shifts in register accomplish in terms of plot and character development, and how one mode of discourse is ultimately valued over another.

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Many observers predicted the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party following the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, and again following the serial collapse of communist regimes behind the Iron Curtain. Their predictions, however, never proved true. Despite minor setbacks, China has experienced explosive economic growth and relative political stability ever since 1989. In The Dictator’s Dilemma, Bruce Dickson provides a comprehensive explanation for regime’s continued survival and prosperity. Dickson draws upon original public opinion surveys, interviews, and published materials to explain why there is so much popular support for the regime. This basic stability is a familiar story to China specialists, but not to those whose knowledge of contemporary China is limited to the popular media. This talk will appeal to anyone interested in understanding China’s increasing importance in world politics.

Bruce Dickson is professor of political science and international affairs and chair of the political science department at the George Washington University. His research and teaching focus on political dynamics in China, especially the adaptability of the Chinese Communist Party and the regime it governs.

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This year’s Korea Week festival will be held under the theme of “Flavour of Korea: Culture, Language, and Cuisine”. The 2016 Korea Week will officially begin on Tuesday, October 11, with the final events taking place on Friday, October 14. There will be many various events showcasing the distnict and unique aspects of Korean culture all throughout the week right here at U of T.

As with last year’s Korea Week, UTKSA has once again partnered with the Centre for the Study of Korea at the Munk School of Global Affairs as well as the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Toronto to host the festival.

Co-hosts for the 2016 U of T Korea Week include the Korean Outreach Volunteer Association (KOVA), The Korea Club, Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, East Asian Studies Student’s Union (EASSU), Contemporary Asian Studies Student’s Union (CASSU), and Global Leaders Association (GLA). All have helped prepare the numerous events to celebrate Korean culture and give everyone at U of T and in Toronto to experience a taste of Korea.

For a full list of event visit facebook.com/uoftkoreaweek

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Directed by Hisako MATSUI; Japanese with English Subtitles

A new, independent documentary film by MATSUI Hisako (Leonie, 2010; Oriume, 2002), What are you afraid of? (2015) features Prof. Chizuko Ueno and several other feminist forerunners in Japan, and by doing so, shows the 40+ years of history of feminism in that country. Women’s history has long been neglected, and this film plays an important role in documenting and remembering the earlier efforts of feminists in Japan. This is a rare opportunity to view this independent film chronicling the lives of early feminists whose courage, vision and perseverance will surely inspire you.

Question & Answer by: Dr. Chizuko Ueno (Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo; President, Women’s Action Network)
Moderator: Dr. Izumi Sakamoto (Associate Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work)

Sociologist by training, Dr. Ueno Chizuko is widely known for her critical role in pioneering the field of gender studies in Japan. She is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo, Specially Invited Professor at Ritsumeikan University, and President, Non-Profit Organization, Women’s Action Network (https://wan.or.jp/). Among her many books, English translation is available for Nationalism and Gender (2004) and The Modern Family in Japan: Its Rise and Fall (2009) (Transpacific Press).

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Ambassador McDowell will describe the run-up to Myanmar’s historic November 2015 election, and the take a look at the transition, Aung San Suu Kyi’s first months in power, and the challenges that lie ahead.

Mark McDowell served from 2013 to 2016 as Canada’s first resident Ambassador to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. He joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 1994 and has served abroad in New York, Taipei, Bangkok, and Beijing. At headquarters his most recent position was Director of Public Diplomacy and Domestic Outreach, and he has worked extensively on international Aboriginal/Indigenous issues.

He received his BA in History and Philosophy from the University of Toronto, and has Masters degrees from the University of Toronto and Harvard University. From 2008-09 he was an Asia Research Fellow at the Ash Institute for Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School.

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Japan is a rapidly ageing society with the world’s second longest life expectancy. The increase of the care burden has become a serious political issue. Since the implementation of the Long Term Care Taking Insurance in 2000, Japan has accumulated 16 years of experience. Recently the Japanese government has shifted its policy towards ageing in place and dying at home, which is welcomed by the elderly. But how can it be realized? I will examine this policy change in light of the practice of medical practitioners and care providers.

Light refreshment will be provided.

Dr. Chizuko Ueno is one of the most popular sociologists in Japan, who is well-known for her contributions in pioneering the field of gender studies in Japan. She is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo, Specially Invited Professor at Ritsumeikan University, and President of the Non-Profit Organization Women’s Action Network (http://wan.or.jp/). Born in 1948, Dr. Ueno finished her Doctoral courses at Kyoto University, and later received her Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo. She has been invited to be a visiting professor at several universities across the globe, including University of British Columbia, Columbia University, Uni. Bonn, and El Colegio de Mexico. Dr. Ueno is a prolific writer both for academic and general public audiences, and some of her many books include: Patriarchy and Capitalism (1990), The Erotic Apparatus (1998), The Politics of Difference (2002), A Thought for Survival (2006), Misogyny in Japan (2010), and A Sociology of Care (2011). English translation is available for Nationalism and Gender (2004) and The Modern Family in Japan: Its Rise and Fall (2009, by Transpacific Press). Several of her books and papers have been translated into Chinese, Korean, French, and Spanish.

Dr. Sheila Neysmith’s scholarship focuses on feminist theory and praxis. She is interested in how knowledge is constructed and used in policies, programs, and praxis. The substantive area of her research for many years has been the paid and unpaid caring labour done by women. Related to these questions is her ongoing engagement with policy issues that affect women as they age. Her current research and writing examines how ageism impacts social policies and service systems – and thus the quality of women’s lives.

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It has never been easy to write the history of Vietnam. This small country’s role in one of the most violent wars of decolonization of the 20th century and in one of the Cold War’s longest conflicts has meant that its past has been endlessly abused for all sorts of purposes, both inside and outside the country. It is perhaps only now, in the early 21st century, that the events which created the modern state can be seen from a more dispassionate, historical perspective. To illustrate this point, Christopher Goscha examines two themes that have been left out of standard accounts of Vietnam – the question of Vietnamese colonialism and collaboration. He will also suggest why it might be useful to revisit the question of periodizing Vietnam’s ‘modern history’ in terms of this country’s colonial encounter with the French in 1858 in order to push it further back in time or leave it open.

Christopher Goscha is associate professor of international relations at the department of history at the Université du Québec à Montréal. His works focuses on colonial Indochina, the wars over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and the Cold War in Asia. He recently published Vietnam, A New History (Basic Books, 2016) and is currently working on a social history of colonial Saigon and Hanoi in a time of war (1945-54).

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The Center for Southeast Asian Studies invites you to the first screening of a brand-new movie series. We will screen the second documentary by critically-acclaimed filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing) about the 1965 Indonesian genocide. In this sequel, Oppenheimer “focuses on a family of survivors who discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. The youngest son, an optometrist named Adi, decides to break the suffocating spell of submission and terror by doing something unimaginable in a society where the murderers remain in power: he confronts the men who killed his brother and, while testing their eyesight, asks them to accept responsibility for their actions. This unprecedented film initiates and bears witness to the collapse of fifty years of silence http://thelookofsilence.com/).” Tania Li, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Southeast Studies, will comment on the movie and contextualize it in relation to politics and development in Indonesia.

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A meeting in memory of Bernard Bate (1960 – 2016), anthropologist and scholar of Tamil.