Asia and Asian Diaspora Events
Winter 2010

> York University China Day
The programme, presented by the Chinese programme, DLLL, will include a Chinese Language Speech Contest and a lecture by author Zhang Ling, winner of China's first Overseas Chinese Literary Award.

The Chinese Language Speech Contest will be held in Ross S562 from 1 to 2:30pm. The Zhang lecture will follow at 3pm. Zhang Ling is the author of the award-winning novel, Gold Mountain Blues. Zhang traces in her epic novel the history of five generations of the Fang family, from the 1860s to the present, both in Canada and China, incorporating "stories of people who braved the ocean to come to a wild land to pursue dreams of wealth and prosperity that quickly eluded them and stories of a lengthy journey of two races finally becoming reconciled after a century of distrust and rejection."
Thursday, 18 March 2010 | Ross S562 | York University

> The Environment and Southeast Asia
Sakkarin Na Nan and Vanessa Lamb will present their research as part of the final YCAR Graduate BrownBag Research Seminar Series of Winter 2010.
Thursday, 25 March 2010 | 12:30 to 2:30pm | 280N York Research Tower

The Making of Plant Gene in the Struggles of the Small-Scaled Farmers under the Global Seed Market Integration in Northern Thailand
Sakkarin Na Nan | PhD Candidate, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University

To challenge the understandings of agrarian transitions under the context of global seed market integration in the northern Thailand, I problematize the taken-for-granted view of "gene" as a naturally bounded entity in the genetics debates and plant genetic manipulations. By exploring the discourses of plant genetic improvement and peasant neo-populism development among the dominant actors like state officials, NGOs and seed companies, I show the various forms of bio-politics for plant genetic improvement upon the spatial arrangement and social practices of the local farmers in one village of Nan province.

I investigate the livelihood strategies being used by the local farmers in order to negotiate with those actors’ regulations involving with plant genetic manipulation. In such negotiation, "gene" is revealed as the ongoing social-nature object being made in the process of hybridization of knowledges under the context of global seed market integration.

Knowledge and Environmental Governance on the Nu-Salween River
Vanessa Lamb | PhD Candidate, Geography

In the face of hydroelectric and other impending developments on the Nu-Salween River, local knowledge has been promoted as one way that local residents can create a counter-discourse to and even serve to ‘democratize’ the scientific ways of knowing that normally dominate the development process. In this paper, I think critically about how such knowledge is incorporated (and indeed, transformed) in decision-making processes and environmental governance. To do so, I present and analyze two situations emerging from the unanticipated outcomes of one local knowledge initiative undertaken by communities in Thailand and Burma living along on the Nu-Salween River, an important transboundary river that serves as a source of livelihood and food for an estimated 6 million people in China, Burma, and Thailand.

> Cosmopolitanism and Youth Identities: Challenging Lacunae in Contemporary Cosmopolitan Conceptualisations
Professor Tracey Skelton, National University of Singapore, will present a paper that asks questions related to young people and cosmopolitanism as intellectually theorised, and in material practice. It asks, in a range of ways, whether young cosmopolitans exist and if so how can we theorise and conceptualise their presence?
April 2010 (TBA) | York University

> The Rise and Fall of Lee Teng-hui’s “No Haste Be Patient” Policy: Its Implication for Taiwan’s Mainland Policy Today
In his talk, Jonathan Yang will examine the recent history of and contemporary struggles over Taiwan government policies with respect to the growing economic ties between Taiwan and China.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010 | 3 to 4:30pm | 830 YRT | York University

> Surveying Korean Transnationalism: Pilot Test Findings from the Study on Toronto Korean Families
Ann Kim will discuss preliminary findings from her 'Development, Migration Strategies and Prospects for Social Integration: Understanding Contemporary Transnationalism Among South Korean Families' research
20 April 2010 | York University

> Asian-Canadian Collaboration in Education: Pathways of Enrichment
Sixth Asian Heritage Month Education Roundtable and Asian Heritage Month Lecture
Wednesday, 19 May 2010 | OISE, University of Toronto