CUHK
News Centre

An international conference on 'The Nation and Citizen in Transformation: Making and Unmaking of Transnationalism in East Asia' was recently held at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). 

The conference brought together an international group of scholars to examine the transformations of the nation and citizenship in East Asia in response to regional and global dynamics. In the last two decades, East Asian countries have opened up regionally and globally via deepening economic and trade ties, increasing population mobility, cross fertilization in popular culture and consumption, and a new political climate among Japan, China and South Korea, and between Taiwan and the mainland. The conference addressed how these contradictory pressures and the tension between transnational and national agendas transform the ideals and practices of 'good society' and 'good citizen'. By focusing on a variety of institutional, policy and societal sites from a comparative perspective, scholars in the conference sharpened and further expanded the horizon of theoretical arguments and policy options. 

Thirteen scholars from world-renowned universities and academic institutes shared their research expertise and experience on the topic: 

Ly-Yun Chang (Academia Sinica,Taiwan), Alexis Dudden (University of Connecticut, USA), Adrian Favell (Aarhus University, Denmark), Koichi Iwabuchi(Waseda University, Japan), David Leheny (Princeton University, USA), Lynne Nakano (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, HK), Yoshiko Nakano (The University of Hong Kong, HK), Mark Selden (Cornell University, USA), John Skrentny (University of California, San Diego, USA), Yasemin Soysal (University of Essex, UK), Kiyoteru Tsutsui (University of Michigan, USA), Suk-Ying Wong (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, HK), Joy Yueyue Zhang (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK). 

The conference was organized by the Department of Sociology and the Faculty of Social Science, CUHK, and sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), the Research Grant Council, Hong Kong and the Faculty of Social Science, CUHK.