About

Migration, Logistics and Unequal Citizens in Contemporary Global Context” is the Global Humanities Institute (GHI) 2020-2021 supported by the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Rapidly increasing international migrations have radically changed the outlook of contemporary 21st-century societies, producing cases of massive displaced and precarious lives, and bring various impacts upon local communities. These emerging phenomena have attracted critical scholarship both in the humanities and social sciences in recent years.

The CHCI-Mellon Global Humanities Institute (GHI) on “Migration, Logistics and Unequal Citizens in Contemporary Global Context” invited applications from early career researchers and advanced graduate students from the interdisciplinary humanities and social science studies, including but not limited to literature, history, philosophy, film, audio-visual arts, performing arts, law, anthropology, sociology, journalism, social media, digital platform, and other forms of practitioners.

Through the analysis of documentaries, films, literature, interviews, archives, governmental policies, and cooperation with NGOs/CBOs and artist groups, this intensive program foregrounded the subjective experiences and perspectives of migrants, the violation of the migrants’ fundamental human rights, the citizen’s attitude against them, as well as the government malfunctioning in dealing with these migrants.

The 2020-2021 CHCI-Mellon GHI “Migration, Logistics and Unequal Citizens in Contemporary Societies” was delivered by the collaborative consortium formed by six core institutes and seven affiliations from eight different countries. Information about the core members can be found on the MEMBERS page.

Our GHI focused on the following three interrelated themes:

1. Conditions of Migration and Precarious Lives
2. Logistics, Geo-economics, Zoning Politics, and Local Infrastructure Initiatives
3. Theoretical Issues Concerning the Questions of Unequal Citizens

Activities in the institute include panel discussions, workshops, group discussions, field trips, site-specific productions, and round-table discussion with NGOs/CBOs. This GHI will serve as a platform and laboratory of collaboration for all participants to explore and to share perspectives, approaches, and practices on the questions related to migration, logistics, and unequal citizens. We are pleased to share the products of its institute which took place in June 2021 virtually and in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

The Institute completed two pre-institute meetings, seven closed-door workshops, eight public webinars, one 5-day summer institute, one online performance, and three hybrid workshops. Our outputs highlight five printed publications, one mobile application for seafarers, and the Living Archive, an online database, including seven podcast series and eight e-pamphlets. You can find all the contents of these project outputs on their GHI website: https://transit-asia.chss.nycu...

Convening centers and organizers

The 2020-2021 CHCI-Mellon GHI was developed by an association of six partner institutes:

1. The International Center for Cultural Studies of National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
2. The Institute for Culture and Society of Western Sydney University, Australia
3. The Institute for Population and Social Research & Mahidol Migration Center, Mahidol University, Thailand
4. The Faculty of the Arts and Social Sciences of University of Malaya, Malaysia
5. Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academia of Sciences, Poland
6. The Group for Inquiries and Social Theory, Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam

CHCI-GHI 2020-2021 also had a robust team of Principal investigator (PI) as well as Co-PIs including:

PI: Joyce C.H. Liu, Chair Professor. Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, Director of International Center for Cultural Studies, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan.

Co-PI: Shu-fen Lin, Professor; Brett Neilson, Professor; Sudarat Musikawong, Associate Professor; Rusaslina Idrus, Senior Lecturer; Rafal Smoczynski, Associate Professor; John Hutnyk, Associate Professor