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Toward a Society of Equality and Coexistence in the Inter-Asian Context: Civic Participation, Legal Reform, Social and Artistic Intervention, Trans-local Free Association
Toward a Society of Equality and Coexistence in the Inter-Asian Context: Civic Participation, Legal Reform, Social and Artistic Intervention, Trans-local Free Association Convener: Joyce C.H. Liu
In response to the main them of the joint project, "Conflict, Justice, and Decolonization," the goal of Subproject V is to foster a Society of Equality and Coexistence in the Inter-Asian Context and, through different dimensions, to facilitate the social practice of Civic Participation, Legal Reform, Social and Artistic Intervention, and Trans-local Free Association.Following the site of social conflicts, intervening in its on-going and urgent issues with multiform practices, and genuinely recognizing the complex kernel of the problematic appearance, Subproject V cooperates with the NGO practitioners and the artistic activists to bring about different forms of knowledge production and intellectual decolonization.
This sub-project has three main focuses:
(1) To investigate the questions of unequal citizens, particularly the social inequality of the marginalized people, such as migrant workers, refugees, stateless people, and other forms of part-of-no-part;
(2) To confront social conflicts and ideological boundaries through artistic intervention and multi-forms of knowledge production;
(3) To facilitate trans-local connections, civic participation, and community regeneration, particularly to encourage graduate students to join the research team and organize various forms of social practices and knowledge production to investigate different social conflicts.
（1）To investigate the questions of unequal citizens, particularly the social inequality of the marginalized people, such as migrant workers, refugees, stateless people, and other forms of part-of-no-part
According to the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the estimate of the total number of international migrants had amounted to 272 million in 2019, up from 173 million in 2000. Compared to 70 million international migrants in 1960, the figure has increased by 200 million. The rapid increase of global migrant populations is partly caused by refugees who fled their homeland because of wars and partly by transnational migrant workers due to international capital flow.
Among the total number of transnational migrants, 83 million migrants are living in Asia. These transnational migrant population has fundamentally changed the societies over the world in the 21st century. These migrants leave their homes to live and work in a different country, not have citizenship, and suffer from all kinds of exploitation, discrimination, violence, and even unable to have fundamental human rights, which also impact local societies. As societies worldwide are not yet ready to respond to these global social changes, civil politics has relatively made the situation of internal colonization more and more serious.
Due to the labor force's demand, Taiwan has introduced a large number of foreign workers in the past 30 years, mainly from Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. However, these documented or undocumented foreign workers are not fully protected by the Labor Standards Law. They have often been abused and cannot fight for the recognition and equal rights in the society where they co-existed, which even become a legalized modern slavery system. These invisible communities who live here but are not seen and cannot participate in the society on an equal basis, have formed the bottom class of the internal colonial system, and challenge community citizenship.
The above-delineated phenomenon reflects the exclusive politics of citizenship that exist in the 21st century. This sub-project investigates the questions of unequal citizens exposed by the transnational migrant population in the Inter-Asia society. It examines the reformation of law, explores the redefinition of citizenship, and the human rights and social rights of migrants and refugees, equal pay for equal work, undocumented migrant workers' right to work, and labor protection of domestic migrant workers. This sub-project plans to establish a network of transnational cooperation and cross-regional connections in migrant workers, refugees, and stateless people. Through the Global Humanities Institute organization, we invite scholars and young students worldwide to explore the issues of social rights of migrant workers and refugees and unequal citizenship. Furthermore, considering other prominent cases of minority groups and part-of-no-part, this sub-project also investigates the non-democratic nature of the politics of citizenship and encourages re-constructing in an emancipatory way the concept of citizenship.
（2）To confront social conflicts and ideological boundaries through artistic intervention and multi-forms of knowledge production
Our researchers in this sub-project interrogate the social conflicts and issues of inequality from the age of the Cold War to the contemporary era through art forms, including visual art, installation art, documentaries, films, digital media, or theater. These diverse forms of art are essential mediation for us to think about society and history. We focus on historically and geopolitically connected regions such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, through the axes of conflict, justice, and decolonization to conduct our analysis. We explore colonization, cold war, globalization, geopolitical economy, migrant workers, refugees, marginalized people, and local resistance from different perspectives such as arts intervention by interrogative design, sensory ethnography, sensory logistics, image otherness, image time, and theater knowledge. We aim to establish a cross-regional critical comparison of Inter-Asia society to transcend a single country and develop a broader understanding of geopolitical history.
(3) To facilitate trans-local connections, civic participation, and community regeneration, particularly to encourage graduate students to join the research team and organize various forms of social practices and knowledge production to investigate different social conflicts
The third part of this sub-project is to facilitate trans-local connections, civic participation, and community regeneration, particularly to encourage graduate students to join the center’s research project. Students can organize different forms of social practice and knowledge production, experiment with various civic participation forms, people’s actions, and other possible community reformation ways. Over the years, our students have organized the “Stranger Cooperation” in the Dongmen Market of Hsinchu City, “Where the People Are: Workshop on People’s Theatre in Inter-Asian Society,” “Muslim Film Festival Workshop,” “Migrant Workers Film Festival,” etc. We have also published Zines through electronic forms. We will also promote curation and documentary production on various issues, and to create a knowledge medium that is more accessible to the public.
*Trans-local Network, Civic Participation, and Re-construction of Community—Joyce C.H. Liu, Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
*Migrant Worker's Rights, Law Reform and Trans-local Connection— Chiung -Chih Chen, Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
*A Study on Gender Wage Discrimination: Focus on Equal Pay for Equal Work and Work of Equal Value—Yu-Fan Chiu, School of Law, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
*Alterity, Negativity, Artistic Intervention, and World-Making—Hwa-Jen Tsai, Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
*Interrogative Design as Art Intervention in Society—Wen-Shu Lai, Institute of Applied Art, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
*The Question of Community and Unequal Citizenship—Joyce C.H. Liu, Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
*The Reflexive Sound Scene: Soundscape Writing and Discourse Archaeology in Sensory Ethnography—LIN, Hsin-I, Associate Professor, Department of Arts & Design ,National Tsing Hua University
*The Theatrical Knowledge and Artistic Production during the Cold War Globalisation in Taiwan—Ko Lun Chen, Postdoctoral Researcher, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
*The Institutions, Networks and Space Shaping of Transnational Labor Migration—Chiung-Chih Chen, Postdoctoral Researcher, National Chiao
Tung University
*Anti-China rhetorics in Taipei Times in the context of the agitation in Hong Kong and of the coronavirus epidemic or : LTI revisited—Alain Brossat, Philosophy, Université Paris 8 / Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
*The Media Aesthetics of Logistics: Belt-Road Network and the Audiovisual Resistance of Southeast Asia—Lawrence Zi-Qiao Yang,Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung Universit
*The politicizing roles of irregular migrant diasporas and the 'ambiguous' concept of citizenship in modern democratic nations in Asia —Poonam Sharma, Postdoctoral Researcher, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
*Temporality in Sinophone Cinema: Aesthetics of the Long Take, Politics of Globalisation, Localist Social Resistance—Louis Lo, Associate Professor and Director Graduate Institute for Studies in Visual Cultures, National Yang Ming University
*From Cold War to Post-Cold War: Artitistic and Socio-Historical Comparisons between Taiwan and Philippines (1970s to 1990s) —Hui-Yu TANG, Postdoctoral Researcher, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University