Global Asia

The Global Asia RIG investigates the multiple manifestations of globalization and gender in Asia from theoretical and methodological perspectives.  Our aim is to analyze the complex processes of globalization, and how they intersect with gender, class, identity, and sexuality across time and space.

Plans for 2012-2013:

  • Reading on class and gender in Asia. The rise of female labor in both regions from manufacturing to IT has led to new forms of self-fashioning and meanings to class and upward mobility. To a great extent, globalization has displaced the older Maoist and Nehruvian models of economic development and the role of the state as a purveyor of social good and equality. Instead, we see the rise of the interiorization of space that has focused on individual aspirations more than the collective good. Representations in media is one space where this becomes visible, among other locations. Yet, much of this new imagination of class mobility is not tied to real changes in material conditions of the working woman employed in service or manufacturing.
  • Will apply for funding for an AY 2013-14 grant toward a symposium on the shifting meanings of class and gender in China and South Asia.
  • Plans to publish the papers from the symposium in a feminist journal such as Feminist Economic, Journal of Women and Society
  • Explore a collaborative project on “Shifts in Class Categories and Globalization in Asia.”

 

Co-Coordinators—Contact for more information:

Sangita Gopal (English/Cinema Studies)
sgopal(at)uoregon.edu, 541-346-3567

Eileen Otis (Sociology)
otis(at)uoregon.edu, 541-346-7102

RIG members
  • Ina Asim (History/Asian Studies))
  • Dan Buck (Geography)
  • Bryna Goodman (History/Asian Studies-on leave 2012-13)
  • Sangita Gopal (English/Cinema Studies)
  • Lamia Karim (Anthropology/CSWS)
  • Xin Huang (Visiting Scholar)