This symposium invites CRN members with a confirmed and demonstrated interest in the field to present their ‘state of Chinese media and cultural studies’, with a special focus on their own areas of achievement, interest and projected development. We include all areas of media and culture where Chinese language is dominant or relevant (China PRC; Hong Kong SAR; Taiwan; and migrant ‘mediaspheres’ globally, or communities in the region). It is envisaged that the symposium will result in a clarification of what we think we do, where we have fault-lines or disciplinary differences (which may well be necessary and productive), and how we might characterise the field at this particular juncture – ie specifically as the CRN seeks to be re-funded or to continue in other ways.

In order to focus the discussion and to develop existing themes in the palette of CRN expertise, we suggest that the symposium is open to all members of the CRN who are interested in the relationship between area studies and cultural research, and who may also have immediate colleagues or students who would benefit or contribute to the discussion.

The structure of the symposium is given below and entails an articulation of why location matters in thinking through culture, but also invites debate on why recent significant paradigms of engagement with culture are not necessarily or usefully confined to pre-formulated ideas of geo-political and cultural space. We will therefore foreground innovative approaches to research in culture as well as re-visiting the long learning approach that underscores the importance of fieldwork, and especially ethnographic or anthropological engagement with place.

PROCESS AND STRUCTURE

CRN members and associates issued an open invitation to offer short papers on the relationship between area studies, cultural research and the possible futures of location/ place-based analysis.

Up to 8 presenters with various perspectives on the ‘China question’ selected to speak on day one, with the second day dedicated to open discussion, in theme groups led by key theoretical innovators in cultural research in Australia and the region.

For more information please contact the Cultural Identities and Communities Node

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