University of Westminster Contemporary China Centre Seminar
Wednesday 18 October 2017, 18:00-19:30,
RS UG05, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2HW
Jennifer Y.J. Hsu, LSE
“State of Exchange: Migrant NGOs and the Chinese Government”
Abstract
Despite the authoritarian nature of the Chinese state, non-governmental organizations have increased dramatically since the 1970s. With labourers migrating to cities en masse in search of higher wages and better standards of living, central and local states permitted migrant NGOs to deliver community services to workers in Beijing and Shanghai. Engaging a new conceptual framework, Jennifer Hsu’s State of Exchange reveals how NGOs interact with spaces and layers of the state and a complex web of government bodies, lending stability to, and forming mutually beneficial relationships with, the state. Interacting with spaces and layers of the Chinese state, NGOs conduct and scale up their programs, while the state engages with NGOs as a means to remain relevant and further legitimise its own interests. As the Chinese state increases its engagement with NGOs, they are also beginning to push Chinese NGOs to move into an international arena to conduct development work abroad. In the final part of the talk, she will consider the nature of the Chinese NGOs internationalisation strategy.
Bio
Jennifer Hsu is a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Social Policy at the LSE and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham. Her research broadly covers state-society and state-NGO relations, and the internationalisation of Chinese NGOs. She has recently commenced a new research project looking at Chinese development assistance in Southeast Asia. She has published in various journals including the Journal of Contemporary China, Progress in Development Studies, The China Quarterly, Urban Studies and Voluntas. Her monograph: State of Exchange: Migrant NGOs and the Chinese Government was released this year with the University of British Columbia Press.
Discussant: Gerda Wielander
Everyone is welcome. Non-University of Westminster attendees should register with James Dyke ([log in to unmask]) in advance.
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