Welcome to Doshisha GRM International Conference

The economic and political gravity of the world seems to be shifting gradually, and perhaps irreversibly, from Atlantic Euramerica to Indo-Pacific Afrasia. This historic process has enormous repercussions throughout the world.

On July 26-27, 2014, leading scholars of Asian and African studies will assemble at Doshisha University, Kyoto, to discuss about the past, the present, and the future prospects of Africa and Asia’s relationship. The participants of this two-day conference will present their latest research findings about the multiple interfaces between the two regions.

Topics will include: the transmigration connecting Africa and Asia; the contested images of “others”; the threads of inter-regional solidarity; and the question of cultural diplomacy. The conference will have three major features. First, the papers will shed light on contact between Africans and Asians in their daily lives, rather than the hard bargaining between power elites. Second, we will try to paint a picture of inter-regional, Asian-African interactions rather than a narrow country-region relationship (we collectively aim to go beyond a Sino-African or a Japanese-African framework, for example). The third feature is the strong focus on history. The papers will try to locate their arguments in the context of past experiences of Africans and Asians in their repeated encounters, in order to add historical depth to the whole discussion.

The conference is prepared by an international team of graduate students who study at the Global Resource Management (GRM) Program and the Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University. They will also read their own papers on refugees, African students and citizens in Japan based on fieldwork and survey research. The conference will be the second gathering on the topic of ‘Africa and Asia Entanglements’. The first launch conference was held at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, on November 4-5, 2013.  Click here to download PDF file on information about 2013 Stellenbosch Conference.

Shikokan, Karasuma Campus of Doshisha University (Photo credit: Abdul Hamid)