Open seminar: “Evaluating State, Nation and Culture: Cosmopolitan Communities in the Asia Pacific”
Speaker: Roger Smith, Kyushu University
Venue: Education Department Meeting Room (教育学部会議室)
Date: November 1 (Tuesday)
Time: 17:00-19:00
Abstract:
This seminar aims to offer a preliminary and exploratory investigation of the political, economic and cultural dynamics of the social contract between ‘cosmopolitan communities’ and their host countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In doing so, it will offer some historic background, define key terms and elaborate upon a (non-definitive) hypothesis in order to lay the groundwork for a later study using systematic case-studies. The manner in which cosmopolitan communities are treated in their host country may reveal the conditions of internal re-balancing between “nation” and “state” as well as provide an evaluative standard for domestic policy across countries. Such an evaluation may also provide clues on the way countries in the Asia Pacific region view their future roles in international society, while allowing for a standard to judge how nation-states plot their trajectories into the future. The classifying of Asian-Pacific countries in this way will better inform us of the forces creating an impetus for regional integration (or polyfurcation), and state consolidation (or transnational diversification).
Dr. Roger Smith is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Languages and Culture at the University of Kyushu and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Western Sydney. His recently published book “Japan’s International Fisheries Policy: Law, Diplomacy and Politics Governing Resource Security” (Routledge 2015) examines Japanese foreign policy relating to food security in a volatile global oceans regime. He has also worked on political economic topics of the Asia Pacific for the Asia Pacific Foundation, the University of Oxford, the Asian Development Bank Institute and the Immigration and Refugee Board.
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