Dear all,
Hope all is well! Just a gentle reminder that the deadline for abstract submissions for an interdisciplinary conference titled '(Re)conceptualising Asian Civil Society in the Age of Post-Politics' is this Friday, 20 April 2018. The conference will take place at the National University of Singapore on 16-17 August 2018. For details on the conference themes and questions, please see below:
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ABSTRACT:
Asia is one of the most rapidly urbanising regions of the world (United Nations, 2014), and many Asian cities now face an array of socio-economic and environmental problems that have emerged as a result of this urbanisation and (re)development process. In response to these challenges, questions surrounding how a 'liveable' and 'sustainable' city can be realised are found within the discourses of governments, scholars, and civil society in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and more. Whilst work has been done on reviewing top-down initiatives addressing these concerns (see Clark and Moonen, 2016), what remains to be examined is the impact and role of civil society in matters of urban governance, especially within the contemporary context where many Asian nations have embraced 'post-political' ideologies and practices, whereby governing power is decentralised and dispersed from the level of the nation state to that of the city (Swyngedouw, 2009; Wilson and Swyngedouw, 2014).
This conference seeks to better understand how civil society in Asian cities are renegotiating existing, and establishing new, alliances and solidarities with each other and with other organisations/institutional bodies in order to reconfigure the way urban governance is conceptualised and enacted in the post-political era. To examine established and emergent network formations within Asian civil societies, this conference focusses on exploring issues surrounding two aspects of the urban condition; that of the natural (the physical resources and features on the landscape) and the cultural (the tangible and intangible features that pertain to human activities), as respectively represented by urban environmental governance and urban heritage conservation debates. Although urban heritage and urban environmental governance may appear as disparate topics, they are in fact interrelated domains, and are central components within discussions on urban liveability and sustainability (see Balsas, 2004; Lloyd et al. 2016), and are therefore pivotal and powerful considerations in the generation of new urban governance initiatives.
As such, we welcome contributions from scholars who, by examining issues pertaining to urban heritage and natural environment management, traces the emerging relationships between civil society actors and organisations across the scale of the urban local, regional, national, and international spheres. By doing so, this conference will enable us to refine our thinking about how civil society addresses existing urban problems, resists urban development, and envisions potential alternative/new forms of urban governance for the future. Some questions this conference addresses include:
1. How has the concept of the 'post-political' been realised in Asian cities; are there any variations in how post-politics has taken shape between localities, why/why not?
2. How is civil society conceptualised in Asia, and how is civil society positioned in relation to local and national governments across the region?
3. What networks between civil society, the local/regional/national government, and international agencies have emerged within the context of post-political governance? What directionality do these networks assume (e.g. 'upward' where civil society form collaborative links with local and national governments, or 'outward' where civil society bypasses various levels of government and instead form connections with transnational organisations)?
4. What opportunities and challenges for civil society has the post-political framework wrought; and what implications does this have for how urban governance in Asian cities will manifest in the near future?
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In the meantime, if there are any questions, please feel free to contact me ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) or Dr. Creighton Connolly ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>). To submit an abstract, please visit the link: https://ari.nus.edu.sg/Event/Detail/77e3f707-a32e-473b-8e1d-c13f57f6b8fe
Cheers,
Sonia
Dr. Sonia LAM-KNOTT Yue Chuen :: Postdoctoral Fellow, Asia Research Institute :: AS8, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent (#07-50) :: National University of Singapore, 119260 :: [log in to unmask]
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