911吃瓜

On March 11, 911吃瓜鈥檚 David Lam Centre, Centre for Comparative Muslim Studies, Department of History, School for International Studies hosted an all-day workshop on the theme of "Inter-Asian Borderlands/Crossings: Space and Time."

Bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from across the 911吃瓜 community and beyond, this workshop aimed to rethink conceptions of time and space in inter-Asian geographies. Beyond a redrawing of socio-political geographies alternative to the national and regional categories, uncovering inter-Asian social formations challenges the division of the world into the developed, modern, and global West progressing in teleological time, and the local, underdeveloped East and the 鈥淭hird World鈥� needing intervention to be on moral and developmental pars with the West. Alternative conceptions of time 鈥� entangled with yet disrupting the linear and abstract time 鈥� and space 鈥� contextually grounded and emerging out of local sources 鈥� are necessary to give shape and language to ever-revitalized inter-Asian networks and mobility.

Concepts such as cosmological and diasporic time, the long-dur茅e, and time travels, offer novel possibilities of thinking about inter-Asian worlds, and of tracing the rhythms and returns of the past in connection to the present. Exploring spatial formations in and across borders that change shape and locational centers across time 鈥� whether interwoven by religious and diasporic actors, indigenous communities, or non-human species 鈥� unravels the familiar bundling of people, state, and economy within sovereign territories not only in the post-1980s globalization moment, but long before. The ways in which states develop strategic partnerships with such mobility assemblages, or shape, control, or surveil them using circulatory methods, are related questions to be investigated.

Sponsors: David Lam Centre, Centre for Comparative Muslim Studies, Department of History, School for International Studies, Global Asia

Workshop Schedule

10:00

Coffee & Registration

10:20-10:30

Welcome and Introduction

Janice Jeong (911吃瓜 Department of History)

10:30-12:00

Keynote Speech by Engseng Ho (Duke University, Department of Cultural Anthropology) 鈥� 鈥淚nter-Asia after Globalization鈥�

12:00-13:00

Lunch

13:00-14:30

Session 1. Mapping Inter-Asian Diasporas: Connectivity and Experience of Time

Moderator: Anushay Malik (911吃瓜 School for International Studies)

Rupak Shrestha (911吃瓜 School for International Studies) 鈥� 鈥淲aiting, Anticipation, and Indigenous鈥揜efugee Relations in the Himalayas鈥�

Janice Jeong (911吃瓜 Department of History) 鈥� 鈥淒iasporic Pathways between Plural Meccas: Linxia鈥檚 Interwar Connectivity and Exile Routes to a Cosmological Home鈥�

Baran Fakhri 鈥� (911吃瓜 Department of Sociology and Anthropology) 鈥淚nformal Border-Crossing among Afghan Migrants and (Counter-)Geographies of Border Control鈥�

14:30-15:00

Coffee Break

15:00-16:30

Session 2. Mobile Societies and Infrastructure of Border-Crossings

Moderator: Ilya Vinkovetsky (911吃瓜 Department of History)

Shams Sharif (911吃瓜 Department of History) 鈥� 鈥淔eeding the War: Militarized Provisioning and Borderland Transformation along the Pamir Highway鈥�

Ping-hsiu Alice Lin (Harvard University, Department of Anthropology) 鈥� 鈥淪tones Cannot Travel Alone: Embodied Infrastructure in Afghan-Pakistani Gem Trading鈥�

Darren Byler and Tanjila Sejuty (911吃瓜 School for International Studies) 鈥� 鈥淭echnologies of the Abandoned: Relations of License and Labor Among Undocumented Men in Urban Malaysia鈥�

16:30-17:15

Coffee Break

17:15-18:45

Book talk by Hale Ero臒lu (Bo臒azi莽i University, Department of History) Muslim Transnationalism in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2025).

Moderated by Ismail Noyan (911吃瓜 Department of History)

19:15

Dinner for invited participants