Minh Nguyen is serving as a Steering Committee member of the 3rd UK-GERMAN FRONTIERS OF HUMANITIES SYMPOSIUM on 09 - 10 May 2022 (virtual conference). This year’s conference draws on the insights of the humanities and social sciences on the theme of ‘Mobilities’, exploring how mobilities have shaped, are shaping, and will shape our environments – both social and natural – and our interaction with them, through time. The symposium’s program can be downloaded here. 

Phill Wilcox has published a paper on events in Laos in 2021 as an invited contribution for the annual review of events in Southeast Asia published by Southeast Asian Affairs.  The title is: “Laos in 2021: (Im)mobility with infrastructure and Covid”.

Jingyu Mao has published a paper, co-authored with her colleague Qing Lin, on China Perspectives. The title is: ‘A New Job after Retirement’: Negotiating Grandparenting and Intergenerational Relationships in Urban China. https://doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.13520

From 13th to 15th January 2022, Dr Jingyu Mao has attended the workshop organised by the project 'Social Worlds: China's Cities as Spaces of Worldmaking' at Würzburg University. She presented a work-in-progress draft entitled "'Friends are those who can help you out': unpacking the understandings and experiences of friendship among young migrant workers in China", and has received constructive feedback on her draft. She also participated in lively discussions of other participants' papers, which share the common theme of the social world, urban spaces, and contemporary China. 

Minh Nguyen (Bielefeld University) and Nicolas Lainez (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement) will convene the panel The Financialization of Everyday Life in Vietnam in the 2022 EUROSEAS Conference. Allison Truitt will be the panel discussant. Minh Nguyen and Minh Ngoc Luong from Bielefeld University will present their papers in this panel. For further information please follow the link.

Phill Wilcox (Bielefeld University) and Simon Rowedder (Passau University) will convene the panel Negotiating China in Southeast Asia: (re)thinking development via infrastructure schemes in the 2022 EUROSEAS Conference. For further information please follow the link. 

The international workshop Reconfiguring Vietnam is taking place on 21-22 April 2022 at the Max Planck for Social Anthropology in Halle as a hybrid event. Convened by Minh Nguyen and Kirsten Endres, it is a collaboration between the institute and AG Social Anthropology of Bielefeld's Faculty of Sociology.

The workshop will recaste the economic lives of Vietnamese living in Vietnam and beyond, i.e. the penetration of global finance, ideas of entrepreneurship, digitalization of economic activities and integration of Vietnamese labour into the global labor market through translocal and transnational migration. In particular, the workshop will address three themes: a) Gender and Private Life, b) Culture and Identity, c) Class and Consumption. For further information please follow the link. 

Phill Wilcox has been invited to give comments on a keynote speech by Professor Tim Oakes (University of Colorado-Boulder) at a conference hosted by the Finnish Society for Development Research - Development Days 2022 on 17-18 February 2022.

Understanding Asia colloquium series continues with a new theme Transnational Care and new round of speakers this winter term. The colloquium series is a joint cooperation of four working groups - WG Missbach, WG Nguyen, WG Pfaff and WG Vasilache. Please see the attached link for details of all the lectures in this series and details of how to register. All are warmly welcome to join. 

WG Social Anthropology (WG Pfaff) launched a new lecture series titled Shaping Asia. The theme of the series in this winter term is Heritage. Please see the attached link for details of all the lectures in this series and details of how to register. All are warmly welcome to join. 

Das Kuratorium der Johannes-Rau-Stiftung formiert sich neu. Weitere Informationen gibt es hier:

We are delighted to announce the publication of the special issue "Rural Life in Late Socialism: Politics of Development and Imaginaries of the Future" edited by Phill Wilcox, Jonathan Rigg and Minh Nguyen in the European Journal of East Asian Studies. This is the first of the two special issues emerging from the ZIF conference "The Good Life in Late Socialist Asia: Aspirations, Politics and Possibilities" organised by Minh Nguyen and Phill Wilcox in September 2019. For further information please follow the link.

The article "Doing Coffee in Luang Prabang: Fusion and the Marking of a Worlds Heritage Space" has been published by Phill Wilcox. This forms part of a special issue of Civilisations (69) "Public Spaces in Socialist East Asia: Interactions, Performativity and Citizenship", edited by V. Frangville, P.Petit and L. Richard (2020).

She will be presenting her contribution to this special issue at a conference entitled "East Asian Youth in Public Spaces" at the Université libre de Bruxelles on 26th May 2021.

On 17. May 2021 at 14:15, Dr. André Thiemann (Rīga Stradiņš University) will present his current research in a talk entitled "Infrastructuring Raspberries: Agronomists, Cold Chains and the Competitive Containment of the ‘Red Gold of Serbia’" (see poster attached).

Follow the link to register: https://uni-bielefeld.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIuf-isrTspG9Aav34LU0KytTsGaa2H3FfD

Keynote lecture by Minh Nguyen for the Scottish Programme of Advanced Training for Social Anthropology PhD Students. See details in attached program: link to pdf

Prof. Dr. Minh Nguyen is giving a talk based on the paper “Peasants, Migrant Workers and “Supermarkets”: An Ethnographic Account of Chinese Development from the Margin” at the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, on Tuesday March 18th, at 16:00-17:30 CET.

Zoom Meeting ID: 981 5093 9409
Passcode: Sussex