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In conjunction with the inauguration of a new curriculum in climate & society in Asia during the 2023-24 academic year, the Center for Asian Studies will be exploring the theme of water in Asia. There are many dimensions to water, as a liquid, a basis of all living organisms, a biotic infrastructure for life, a material around which complex social relations of power swirl, and a counterpoint to conceptions that area studies are based on.  With this theme, CAS seeks to gather together divergent interests in ‘blue humanities’, ‘wet ontologies’, environmental justice movements associated with water, climate change induced experiences of flood and drought, and social fluidities of all sorts – from labor migrant streams to ‘be like water’ protest movements – all in the spatial and temporal contexts of Asian places. We are particularly interested in how the social effects of anthropogenic climate change are experienced through human relations with water.

2024 Asia Symposium: Fluid Asia

Friday, April 12, 8:45am - 5:30pm
Center for British and Irish Studies, Norlin Library 5th floor

This symposium explores themes of physical and social fluidities in Asia. There are many dimensions to water, as a liquid, a basis of all living organisms, a biotic infrastructure for life, a material around which complex social relations of power swirl, and a counterpoint to conceptions that area studies are based on.  With this theme, CAS seeks to gather together divergent interests in ‘blue humanities’, ‘wet ontologies’, environmental justice movements associated with water, climate change induced experiences of flood and drought, and social fluidities of all sorts – from labor migrant streams to ‘be like water’ protest movements – all in the spatial and temporal contexts of Asian places. We are particularly interested in how the social effects of anthropogenic climate change are experienced through human relations with water.

Schedule:

8:45 Opening Remarks by Director of the Research and Innovation Office, Massimo Ruzzene 

9:00am - 10:30am Water Politics and Contestations
This panel examines infrastructural challenges related to water and political and social contestations around water, including hydropower development, sanitation, community water access, and the consequences of climate change.
Speakers:
Yaffa Truelove (Geography, CU Boulder )
Nga Dao (Geography, York University )
Win Myo Thu (Myanmar activist)
Moderator: Zannah Matson (Environmental Design, CU Boulder)

10:30am - 10:45am Break

10:45am - 12:15pm Social Fluidities 1: Transnational Solidarities, Social Movements, and Migration
This panel explores social fluidities and circulations, including how the rise of transnational solidarities, cross-border social movements, and global migrations are reshaping social and political life in Asia. 
Speakers:
Andrew Le (Sociology, Arizona State University )
Purvi Mehta (History, Colorado College)
Clara Lee (Anthropology PhD candidate, CU Boulder)
Moderator: Shae Frydenlund (Center for Asian Studies, CU Boulder)

12:15pm - 1:30pm Lunch

1:30pm - 3:00pm Social Fluidities 2: Environment, Development, and Diaspora 
This panel explores the relationship between material challenges and social life, including how contemporary artists respond to regional environmental challenges, diaspora politics, and contestations around development.  
Speakers:
Alvin Camba (Korbel School, University of Denver)
Brianne Cohen (Art History, CU Boulder)
Dawa Lokyitsang (Anthropology PhD, CU Boulder)
Moderator: Kathryn E. Goldfarb (Anthropology, CU Boulder)

3:00pm - 4:00pm Reception

4:00pm - 5:30pm Keynote: Julie Chu, University of Chicago
Upstream, Downstream, Offshore:
Constancy Amidst the Flux of Supply Chains

Before “the chain” became the dominant figure for understanding the dynamics of supply and demand in the 1980s, fluvial landscapes have long undergirded logistical projects for building out and maintaining the infrastructural channels of commerce and travel, especially around estuarial or delta zones where rivers meet the sea. Drawing on two decades of ethnographic engagements with the original “development deltas” of Post-Mao China linking coastal SEZs (Special Economic Zones) along the Pearl, Min and Yangtze rivers to global exchange, this talk offers an estuarial take on what scholars of modernity and supply chain capitalism have described as a “liquid” world full of uncertainty and volatility. But in lieu of a theory of universal flux, the talk focuses on the temporal politics of constancy that make fluvial landscapes thinkable in terms of supply chains and in turn, actionable as valued lifeways to be developed and sustained along the logistical junctures of upstream, downstream and the offshore.