Call for Papers

WEAPONIZING PEOPLE

Militarization and Armed Conflict in Asia

November 9-10, 2018

An international conference at BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY
Sponsored by the Institute for Asian and Asian Diasporas

Militarization – the heightened role of organized aggression in society – has affected all walks of life in contemporary and historical societies across different regions in Asia. This militarization has been Asian-centric in some contexts but has also involved significant external intervention, most saliently from European colonialism, the geopolitics of the Cold War, and American imperialism. While militarization has resulted in warfare and armed conflict across regions, between countries, or within borders, some manifestations are rendered invisible by relations of power, normalized as the status quo. This conference will be a multi-layered examination of cultures of violence, and the structures in which they are embedded within the context of the Asian continent.

With a keynote lecture delivered by AIJAZ AHMAD, this interdisciplinary conference will explore the of militarization effects, armed conflict, and structural violence across the breadth of Asia from critical perspectives that highlight multiple narratives as well as the intersection of local, national, and global trajectories of these What are the discourses, institutions, and historical scenarios that lead to regional armed conflict, warfare between countries, civil war, and militarization that painfully peoples' lives without bursting into armed conflict? How can we challenge the persisting legacies of these various forms of militarization and articulate alternative visions of peace and peace-making that transcend the normative manner in which these are dealt with by the United Nations and international/transnational organizations? From war-torn present-day West Asia (commonly branded the Middle East) to twentieth-century genocides in South Asia, the Vietnam war and civil war in Sri Lanka to Japanese colonialism and European colonialism in South and South East Asia and US militarism in the Philippines plus the more popularized sites of North-South Korea tensions, the Talibanization of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the rising military presence of China, we welcome submissions that analyze the dynamics of these and similar situations. We particularly solicit proposals that focus on the ways in which militarization, conflict, and invisible forms of violence in Asia shape or produce privileges and oppressions through the intersectional workings of gender, class, race/ethnicity, religion, caste, sexuality or any other such mediating social structure.

PROPOSALS are sought from junior and senior scholars, including graduate students, from all fields. Individual paper proposals and panel proposals with three papers on a related theme are welcome. Financial support might be available to graduate students and scholars based in Asia.

Questions should be sent to asiacon@binghamton.edu