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APMRN Update Newsletter of the Asia Pacific Migration Research Network - No. 3 |
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APMRN on the Web The APMRN is now on the World Wide Web under the Centre for Multicultural Studies, University of Wollongong Homepage. The Centre’s Homepage address is: http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/cms/cmshome.html The APMRN pages include the project outline, a report of the APMRN Bangkok Conference, a list of countries participating and the most recent edition of APMRN News. The Secretariat is currently compiling a list of other sites to hyperlink to the APMRN site. The following notice concerning conference papers was sent to us by Professor Chan Kwok Bun of Singapore. He asked that we distribute this through the APMRN. An email version was sent to APMRN members in June.
CALL FOR PAPERS - The Chinese of Thailand We invite critical essays for a multidisciplinary anthology to rethink, away from the Skinnerian paradigm, the experience of the Chinese of Thailand. The emphasis is on an analysis of the Chinese men's and women's experiences, invoking such issues as class, gender and generation politics, the public/private dividie, religion, nationhood, ethnic identity, modernity, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, migration, transnationalism, and the Chinese diaspora. The essayists are encouraged to push their analyses beyond existing boundaries, be they family, kinship, and ethnic community; political and spiritual spaces; or gender, class and race categories. We welcome contributions from the disciplines of cultural studies, anthropology, psychology, history, geography, literature, political science and sociology. Send three copies of manuscript (25-30 pages) by 1st of March, 1997 to Chan Kwok Bun, Dept of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260. Fax: 65-777 9579
Social Theory and the Refugee Experience We invite critical essays for a special issue on social theory and the refugee experience. The emphasis is on a critical appraisal of the role of social theory in refugee studies, assessing existing attempts in the literature at theorizing and conceptualizing the various aspects of the refugee experience. We also welcome original attempts at invoking theories, ideas and concepts embedded in the diverse disciplines of humanities and social sciences to uncover the deeper layers of the refugee experience -- all in a larger effort to bring refugee studies back into the normative science. A critical analysis of how gender, generation, race, and class politics impinge on the refugee experience is an example of such attempts. We also solicit postmodernist essays that compare and contrast specific refugee communities as diasporan communities, conceptualizing them as transnational phenomena crossing borders and resisting the controlling behaviour of the nation-state. We are interested as well in analyses of identity transformations during the trajectory of forced migration -- such attempts necessarily position the theorist face-to-face with questions of self, ethnicity, modernity, home, belongingness, and citizenship. Send four copies of manuscript to Chan Kwok Bun, at the above address, or Roger Zetter, School of Planning, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane Campus, Headington, Oxford OX3 OBP, U.K.
IOM Funding Professor Stephen Castles held talks recently with the International Organisation Migration (IOM) Director for Australasia & Oceania, Mr. Jorgen Steen Olesen. Mr. Olesen was briefed on the APMRN project and as a result of the meeting, negotiated for IOM Geneva to donate US$4,000 to the operating costs of the APMRN Secretariat. A further US$4,000 is also pledged for 1997. IOM support for the APMRN project is significant, and it is hoped that further material and financial support from IOM will be available in the future.
News from New Zealand Professor Dick Bedford of New Zealand was recently awarded funding for stage 2 of a collaborative research project on migration from East Asia to New Zealand. The project is part of a broader study into contemporary population change in New Zealand. Professor Bedford is also negotiating another project which includes Professor Wong Siu-lun of Hong Kong, looking at population mobility between Hong Kong and New Zealand. This project ties in with the APMRN research group coordinated by Professor Bedford. Meanwhile, the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO is being approached to consider funding for the APMRN Secretariat. Professor Bedford met with the UNESCO NZ Chairperson in July to discuss the possibility and has reported a favourable response. 1. A bibliography on immigration and immigration for New Zealand is currently being prepared by Andrew Trlin and Paul Spoonley. The resulting book contains two sections. One is a listing of the relevant publications and 800 entries have now been identified and are being entered on a database. In addition, a second section includes chapters on various policy matters and migration trends, and contributors to this section include two APMRN members, Dick Bedford and Paul Spoonley. The publication will be published by Massey University and will appear in November 1996. The material will feed into the bibliographic project that is part of APMRN activities, as well as provide relevant material for other projects on policy. For further information, contact Paul Spoonley. 2. The Department of Sociology, Massey University-Albany has just received funding to research various developments on Auckland's North Shore. A central aspect of the "North Shore Project" is an investigation of the way in which migration from East Asia, the UK and South Africa has impacted on social and cultural relations on the North Shore and the implications for decision-making processes and policy. This is a longitudinal study which has initial funding for the establishment of a data base, and possibly a researcher who will conduct a series of surveys that sample different communities on the North Shore.
News From Thailand The ARCM held a conference in May 1996 based on a project entitled "Thai Migrant Workers in Southeast and East Asia". ARCM commissioned researchers to investigate the Thai migrant workers in Singapore, Brunei, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. ARCM asked each researcher to collect data and look at areas such as the occupations of the migrants, their contributions to the nations in which they work, remittances, and the conditions faced by the migrants away from home. The conference included participants from the Thai government (Ministry of Labor; Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Thailand Research Fund; National Economic and Social Development Board), NGOs and the academic community.
UNESCO-MOST News Dr. Nadia Auriat informed the Secretariat that copies of the final proceedings of the Bangkok conference have been distributed to all UNESCO permanent delegations of countries represented in the APMRN, as well as to Secretaries General of all UNESCO National Commissions involved. APMRN representatives are encouraged to follow this up with their respective National Commissions.
UNDP We have been informed by the UNESCO-MOST that there is likely to be UNDP funding available for projects concerned with migration and poverty alleviation. We are awaiting details from Victor Ordoñez, Director of PROAP in Bangkok.
Vietnam Contact The Secretariat received recently a letter from Ngo Thi Kim Dung of the Institute of Social Sciences in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The letter was to introduce Mr. Nguyen Quang Vinh who received a copy of the APMRN project brief and hopes to participate in the Network. At the APMRN Bangkok Conference, the issue of extending the Network to Vietnam and other countries of Southeast Asia was discussed. The IOM representative for Vietnam, Anthony Newman, was also an observer at the Conference. Contact with Vietnamese scholars was also initiated by Patrick Brownlee directly after the Conference, when he travelled to Ha Noi and attended a conference on Urban Governance in Vietnam. There were a number of leading Vietnamese social scientists at the Ha Noi conference, who were briefed on the APMRN project. Formally extending the Network to Vietnam is a matter for the APMRN members to resolve, but at this stage, developing contacts with Vietnam will allow us to learn more about migration and ethnic studies there.
Singapore Contact There is now a new APMRN member for Singapore - Dr. Yap Mui Teng (PhD Sociology, Hawaii). Unfortunately, Singapore was not able to be represented at the Bangkok Conference. Dr. Yap Mui Teng is based at the Institute of Policy Studies and will be forwarding an Issues Paper to the Secretariat in the near future. The Singapore Issues Paper will be circulated and included in the publication of all Issues Papers. Dr. Yap’s publications include:
The Social Impact of Regionalization. Paper presented to the National Advisory Council on the Family and the Aged, chaired by the Minister for Community Development, January 1996. (Second author: Arun Mahizhnan) Dr. Yap has been briefed on the conference outcomes and will be invited to join the various research programmes. If you wish to contact Dr. Yap, the details are: Yap, Mui Teng (Dr)Senior Research Fellow Institute of Policy Studies Hon Sui Sen Memorial Library Building Kent Ridge Drive Singapore 119260 Tel: 65-779-1146 Fax: 65-776-7907 Email: yapmt@pacific.net.sg Mailing Address:
APMRN update is the newsletter of the Asia Pacific Migration Research Network (APMRN). The Network is an initiative of the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) division of UNESCO. For more information on the APMRN, please contact:
Patrick Brownlee |
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