CALL FOR PAPERS
organised
by
Asia
Research Institute
National University of Singapore,
Singapore
Programme
Registration
Speakers Proposal Form
The conference aims to bring together
scholars of Asia whose work interrogates the state-family
relationship. We invite scholars to reflect on the complex political
processes that produce “the Asian family” and to analyse the
consequences of these processes for state and society.
The rapidly changing face of Asia is
perhaps most sharply represented in the changing composition,
functions, and meanings of its families. Scholarship on the Asian
family has highlighted the myriad ways in which changes in the
organization of economic lives, demographic trends, social mobility
opportunities, migration patterns and global cultural influences
have affected the shape, form, and significance of “the family” in
people’s lives. Scholars have long acknowledged the family as an
important site of state action within the context of these changes.
The tendency remains, however, to conceptualize the family and the
state as distinct entities—with the state impacting on the
family—rather than formed in relation to each other. In this
framework, the “public” state steps in to “interfere” with the
“private” family only on specific “problems.” In this way, despite
the richness of this scholarship, studies of the family continue to
stand somewhat outside larger debates about political systems and
state-society relations. Contemporary Asian state actors also
contribute to perpetuating a view of “the Asian family” as private
and primordial, and hence, its own actions as ameliorative and
apolitical.
This conference focuses on the relational
formation of state and family by highlighting the complex and
sometimes contradictory power struggles and negotiations that render
possible or impossible particular definitions of the contemporary
Asian family, as well as the consequences of these processes on
larger questions of political culture and state-society
relationships. We aim to bring together scholars of the region whose
research investigates the politics of state-family relations through
these questions: How are familial forms produced—what are the
political processes that produce specific definitions of “family
members,” “family relations,” and “familial responsibilities and
rights”? On the other hand, what are the consequences of these
political processes—on individuals, on civil society, on the state’s
own authority, and more broadly, on the texture and tone of power
relations in society?
Key themes that follow:
- State definitions of “the family”:
rhetoric and practice; variations across time and space;
- “The family” as site of
mobilization, movements, contestations and/or cooperation among
different actors, vis-à-vis the state. These interactions may
include different government agents, non-governmental
organizations, and individuals in both national and transnational
contexts, and contestations may be based around class, ethnic,
gender, and other group interests and agenda;
- The reach of the state and its
limits in relation to its definitions of meanings, forms, and
functions of family;
- The (re)production of inequality
and equality through interactions between state and family;
- The (re)production of political
culture and political subjectivity as a result of state and family
interactions: the generation of interests, identities, and
legitimate and illegitimate political behaviour;
- “Powerful” families—such as
families of political elites and royal families—and their roles in
shaping the definition of family in specific contexts, and in
shaping state and family relations;
- The changing family as a site where
there is rethinking of the state and civil society in the era of
rapid global change.
We invite historians, sociologists,
anthropologists, political scientists and other social scientists
working on Asia to submit paper proposals.
We hope to select from the conference
papers articles for one to two special journal issues.
Please submit paper abstracts (maximum
300 words), by 1st
October 2006 to Alyson
Rozells.
Decisions will be made by the beginning
of November. Complete papers are due 15th March 2007.
Speakers will be provided with
accommodation, and partial reimbursement for air-travel may be
available.
For further enquiries, please
contact:
Dr Teo You
Yenn
Dr Shen
Hsiu-Hua