Program International Workshop - Knowledge on the Move: Connectivities, Frontiers, Translations in Asia - Uni Bielefeld

Program

          International Workshop

          Knowledge on the Move:
Connectivities, Frontiers, Translations in Asia

          The University of Tokyo, January 9-10, 2021

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Knowledge on the Move: Connectivities, Frontiers, Translations in Asia

Dates: 9-10 January 2021
9 January (Sat): 16:00-19:30(Japan) / 15:00-18:30(Singapore) / 8:00-11:30(Germany)
10 January (Sun): 16:00-18:30(Japan) / 15:00-17:30(Singapore) / 8:00-10:30(Germany)
Venue: zoom

In recent years, scholars have begun to look critically at the hegemonies in the generation and dissemination
of "knowledge" on Asia. This workshop, "Knowledge on the Move" embraces this perception and seeks to
learn what kind of knowledge circulates where and when, and why and how it does or did so. It addresses
the dynamics of and within global epistemic frameworks by focusing on epistemic communities in everyday
life: turning away from a merely intellectually oriented understanding of epistemology and attending to
knowledge systems that inform and connect people in their daily life across nations and regions. The feeling
of being connected – including the notion of "belonging" – accrues from various reasons: shared beliefs,
spiritual commitments, emotional affinities, sensory resonances and the like. Ontological elements of
different knowledge systems translate into guiding concepts and principles for people's decision-making in
daily life, their normative horizons and behavioral protocol.

Panelists discuss the "knowledges" that inform and facilitate connectivities across borders. Connectivities,
furthermore, engender frontiers that emerge through the forming of in-groups and out-groups – those who
do share a certain knowledge and those who do not. The identification of "ontological ecologies" that stretch
beyond national – sometimes regional – borders and their meaning for human interaction becomes
increasingly important against the backdrop of an ever more dynamic shift between the physical (territorial,
maritime) and emotional geographies of people's everyday life. Consequently, this is what the workshop
wishes to debate.

This workshop is part of a larger project entitled “Shaping Asia”. With regard to political, social and
economic disparities within Asia, this project reminds scholars of the importance to (critically) reflect the
concept of “Asia”.

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Day 1 (9 January 2021)

16:00-16:05
Opening Remarks

16:05-17:35
Panel 1: Emotional Geographies and Ontological Ecologies across Asia

    This panel caters to the connectivities between people that have emerged because of the feeling of
    belonging to certain communities or the sharing of particular identities, be it spiritual, religious,
    experiential, ideological, gender-based, or issue-related (i.e. rooted in shared concerns) ones. Such
    connectivities may span huge distances and thereby transgress territorial and maritime boundaries
    which usually serve to designate and demarcate “areas”.

    *15minutes for each presentation

Éva R. Hölzle (Bielefeld University)
     Knowing the Forest: Modes of Living at the Borderlands of India and Bangladesh
Katsuo Nawa (The University of Tokyo)
     Changing Imagination of Rang “Villages”: Geographical Knowledge, Belonging,
     Connectedness, and New Modes of Representation
Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka (Bielefeld University)
      Language of Ethnicity: Connectivities, Frontiers, and Translations in South Asia
Ryo Mizukami (The University of Tokyo)
     Trans-Sectarian Dialog on the Twelve Imams: Rethinking the Confessional Boundary
     between Sunnism and Shiʿism in Medieval Islam

Chair: Riho Isaka (The University of Tokyo)
Discussant: Claudia Derichs (Humboldt University Berlin)

17:35-17:45
Tea Break

17:45-19:30
Panel 2: Indigenization and Circulation of Knowledge in Asia: Past and Present

    While local and indigenous knowledge have become established topics in research, the travel and
    circulation of knowledge within and across Asia receives scarce attention. The panel intends to address
    the travel of knowledge in Asia by looking at a few exemplary fields of circulation.

    *15minutes for each presentation

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Kelvin E.Y. Low (National University of Singapore)
     Sense-able Asia: Knowledge on the Move
Shiho Maeshima (The University of Tokyo)
     The Empire’s Divided World Picture: Discourses and Representations of “Self” and
     “Other” in Interwar Japanese Magazines
Noorman Abdullah (National University of Singapore)
     Toward a Commitment to Alternative Discourses in Asia: Teaching and Pedagogical
     Interventions
Kaori Mizukami (The University of Tokyo)
     Connectivity Among Indian Immigrants in Hong Kong, Manila and North America in the
     Early Twentieth Century
Minako Wakasugi (The University of Tokyo)
     A Comparative Study of Positive Neutrality in Indonesia, India, Yugoslavia and North
     Korea

Chair: Akio Tanabe (The University of Tokyo)
Discussant: Tsuyoshi Ishii (The University of Tokyo)

Day 2 (10 January 2021)

16:00-17:30
Panel 3: Un-translatable? The Language of Concepts

    Much criticism in the field of knowledge production and dissemination has been directed at the bias
    in global academia towards theories, methods and concepts developed in the West/global North.
    However, there are also numerous concepts deriving from Asian contexts. Panelists discuss examples
    of such concepts and ask if and how they have been translated into other Asian and possibly also
    Western languages.

    *15minutes for each presentation

Claudia Derichs (Humboldt University Berlin)
     Languages and Concepts: Ie (家), Kazoku (家族), Kinship, and Family
Tadahisa Izeki (Chûô University)
     Problems of Translating Culture-Bound Terms in Social Sciences
Emi Goto (The University of Tokyo):
     Translations of the Qur’an and Gender Justice: The Case of Ryoichi Mita’s Work in Japan
Riho Isaka (The University of Tokyo)
     Travel Experiences and Knowledge Formation: Narratives of Japanese Travellers in
     Colonial India

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Chair: Aya Ikegame (The University of Tokyo)
Discussant: Mohammed Moussa (Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University)

17:30-17:45
Tea Break

17:45-18:30
General Discussion

Organized by Center for South Asian Studies(TINDAS), Institute for Advanced Global Studies
(IAGS), Network for Education and Research on Asia (ASNET), Center for German and European
Studies (DESK), East Asian Academy for New Liberal Arts (EAA), Institute for Asian and African
Studies (IAAW, Humboldt University Berlin)