Soziologie

» Veröffentlicht am 14. Juli 2022

WelfareStruggles Policy Brief Series now available online

We are pleased to announce the WelfareStruggles Policy Brief Series is now available online. This series is edited by Prof. Minh Nguyen and features short comparative assessments of a number of key issues that characterise the institutional contexts of labour mobility and welfare provision in China and Vietnam. These issues are directly implicated in the politics around the care of the migrant labour force that we are investigating in this project. The Policy Brief is written for a broad range of audience, including NGO workers, policy makers, researchers, students, and anyone interested in the similarities and differences between the Chinese and Vietnamese institutional contexts. 

» Veröffentlicht am 4. Mai 2022

3rd UK-GERMAN FRONTIERS OF HUMANITIES SYMPOSIUM

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. 

» Veröffentlicht am 17. Februar 2022

Social Anthropology AG will participate in the 2022 European Association of Southeast Asian Studies conference in Paris

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. 

» Veröffentlicht am 17. Februar 2022

Reconfiguring Vietnam: Global Encounters, Translocal Lifeworlds

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. 

» Veröffentlicht am 11. Februar 2022

Phill Wilcox is invited to give comments at the Development Days 2022

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.

» Veröffentlicht am 27. August 2021

Social anthropology presence at two conferences

Researchers from the social anthropology working group attended the 12th International Convention of Asia Scholars convened (virtually) in Kyoto, Japan. Dr Jake Lin convened a panel entitled 'Migrant labour and Welfare Restructuring in China and Vietnam'. Dr Phill Wilcox co-convened a panel entitled 'Aspiring to the "Chinese dream": Local Perceptions of Chinese Globalisation and Development in Asia'. Both researchers also presented papers in their respective panels.

Social anthropology staff will also attend (online) the European Association of Southeast Asian Studies Conference in September 2021. Professor Minh Nguyen is an invited discussant for a panel entitled 'Between Perils and Promises of Mobility: Aspiration, Possibility and the "Good Life" in Southeast Asia'. Dr Phill Wilcox is convening a panel entitled: 'The Power of Gastronomy: Changing Urban Foodscapes in Southeast Asia' and is presenting her recently published article entitled 'Doing Coffee in Luang Prabang: Fusion and the Making of a World Heritage Space'.

» Veröffentlicht am 24. Februar 2021

New Publications from AG Social Anthropology

» Veröffentlicht am 12. Februar 2021

Review of Minh Nguyen's book Waste and Wealth

A review of “Waste and Wealth” was published by the Society for the Anthropology of Work. Please follow the link for further information [here].

» Veröffentlicht am 11. Januar 2021

Exchange Forum Regarding Global Encounters

An exchange forum between sociology faculties of Nanjing University, Vietnam National University (Hanoi) and Bielefeld University takes place on Tuesday, 19^th of January 2021 at 8am German time, 2pm Vietnam time, 3pm China time. Scholars from three institutions will briefly present their current research on a topic related to social transformations, with a view to highlighting forms of global connectivity and interactions in particular contexts.

» Veröffentlicht am 19. November 2020

Field of Exceptional Uncertainty: The Challenges of Early-Career Anthropologists in the Wake of the Corona Pandemic (Position Paper)

The position paper conveys the difficulties of practicing fieldwork and ethnography in times of lockdowns, travel bans, physical and social distancing to university administrations, funding agencies and also the wider public. It is the result of a collective effort by all organizers and participants of the DGSKA (German Anthropological Association) Online Autumn Academy that took place in October 2020. The attached document reads most complementary to the participants' blog contributions 'Fieldwork in Crisis'.

» Veröffentlicht am 3. November 2020

Peasants, Migrant Workers, and "Supermarkets": An Ethnographic Account of Chinese Development from the Margin

Minh Nguyen is giving a lecture at the University of Erlangen – Nürnberg on Thursday, 5^th November from 6pm to 8pm.

» Veröffentlicht am 22. Oktober 2020

Boasblog Fieldwork Meets Crisis and German Anthropological Association's Autumn Academy (21-23.9)

The blog Fieldwork meets Crisis is part of the DGSKA Autumn School, which takes its starting point in the current pandemic moment, which substantially affects our discipline. In their blog posts, the participating researchers give insight into challenges and opportunities of ongoing research in times of the pandemic, and document not only pandemic field sites, but also current theoretical debates and emerging fields of anthropological research.

Die Herbstschule nimmt ihren Ausgangspunkt im aktuellen pandemischen Moment, das unser Fach in seiner Gänze betrifft und zu verändern scheint. Selbst wenn die Corona-bedingten Veränderungen der ethnologischen Forschung  (hoffentlich) nicht von Dauer sein werden, provozieren sie wichtige Fragen und Diskussionen, die über den pandemischen Moment hinausgehen und für die Ethnologie relevant bleiben.

» Veröffentlicht am 28. Juli 2020

New Publications from RG Social Anthropology

• Professor Dr. Minh Nguyen has published the paper Portfolios of Social Protection, Labour Mobility and the Rise of Life Insurance in Rural Central Vietnam in Development and Change.
• Dr. Jake Lin has published the paper Psyche Matters: Resistance from the Chinese Sweatshop of the World in Perspectives on Global Development and Technology.
• Dr. Phill Wilcox has published a paper “Don't ever change”? Cultural heritage and social development in “timeless” Luang Prabang in Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development.

» Veröffentlicht am 22. April 2020

Minh Nguyen Co-Editor of Special Issue on "The Moral Turn of Development in South East Asia"

Minh Nguyen  is the co-editor of the current South East Asia Research, Volume 28, Issue 1: “Beyond the State? The Moral Turn of Development in South East Asia”. This a special issue of South East Asia Research on moral development in Southeast Asia, edited by Associate Professor Annuska Derks and Professor Minh Nguyen. Looking “beyond the state”, articles in this special issue examine new assemblages of humanitarian and development actors.

» Veröffentlicht am 30. September 2019

Minh Nguyen wins book prize