*SEMINAR ON TOMORROW*
The TransAsiaSTS Network is delighted to announce its first invited virtual
lecture for 2021 by Prof. Itty Abraham, National University of Singapore on
Friday, March 26. Details of the talk and registration links follow below.
Prof. Usha Raman, University of Hyderabad, will serve as a discussant.
*Title:* Technology as a Political Instrument: The Tactical and the
Strategic
*Abstract:* The close association of social media platforms (Facebook,
Twitter) with the so-called “Arab Spring” popular movements has
reinforced
our collective understanding of new media technologies as a great political
disruptor. Under some circumstances, digital media can become a force
multiplier for an unarmed public against a repressive state. Such a
politics of confrontation should be seen as a tactical use of technology,
facing certain inherent limits. Political technologies can be strategic as
well, however, going far beyond the direct encounter of a movement and
state to threaten state legitimacy, as this case study will discuss. My
examination of a KL-based Rohingya diaspora group explores the long-term
strategic implications of what I call the politics of recognition through
discussion of two technopolitical moments – the group’s negotiations with
the Unicode Consortium to make the Rohingya script visible on electronic
screens and efforts to use blockchain to create a transnational refugee
database.
*Speaker Bio:* Itty Abraham is Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the
National University of Singapore and the former director of the South Asia
Institute, the Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Chair, and former
associate professor of government and Asian studies. He was a fellow at the
East-West Center, Washington, and taught at the Elliot School of
International Affairs at George Washington University. Abraham was program
director for South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Global Security and
Cooperation at the Social Science Research Council in New York from
1992-2005, where he helped shape the intellectual framework for post-area
studies scholarship. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics at Loyola
College, Madras, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in political science from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has received grants from the
Ford, Rockefeller, and Wenner-Gren foundations, the Open Society Institute
Burma Project and the U.S. Institute of Peace, and held a postdoctoral
fellowship at the Center for International Security and Arms Control at
Stanford University. His research interests include international
relations, science and technology studies, and postcolonial theory.
*Disussant Bio:* Usha Raman is a professor of media studies at the
University of Hyderabad, with teaching and research interests in science
and health communication, digital cultures, feminist media studies and
narrative journalism.
*Seminar Date and Time*: Friday March 26, 04.00 UTC.
*Live Streaming Link:* https://youtu.be/YhTy_vjeB6U
*Event registration and other information:*
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/transasiasts-seminar-itty-abraham-tickets-145
144167111
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