The ongoing mass demonstrations in Hong Kong for autonomy under China’s rule, mass protests in India in response to the introduction of the National Registry of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act, the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination against India’s unilateral annexation and siege, and the oppositional popular protests surrounding the Duterte regime in the Philippines have drawn much public attention. These emerging struggles not only indicate the intensification of social conflicts but spotlight the proliferation of illiberal regimes across the world. Should these popular movements be conceived as anti-authoritarian human rights campaigns, democratization movements, or anti-imperialist and postcolonial struggles? This workshop brings together thinkers/activists to find commonalities in praxis and conceptualization across various cases.
This workshop consists of two panels that interrogate the dynamics between illiberal regimes and insurgent politics across China, Hong Kong, India, Indian adminstered-Kashmir, and the Philippines. The first panel explores the historical formation and contemporary arrangement of illiberal regimes that have manifested in both “authoritarian” and “democratic” societies. It takes a “top-down” perspective to unpack the various logics and mechanisms invoked by these regimes (law, land, explicit and implicit violence, religion, citizenship rights, nationalism, and etc.) as well as their entanglement with global capitalism and international politics. The second panel takes a “bottom-up” approach to provide in-depth accounts of the strategies, tactics, contradictions, and constraints within and between the movements. Connecting these places, we hope to reflect on the nature of popular struggles in the Global South and to chart a path forward.
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Panel I: Illiberal Regimes – Formation and Logics
Chair/discussant:
Netina Tan
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, McMaster University
Panelists:
Sida Liu
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto
Rick Sin
Co-Chair, Asian Canadian Labour Alliance, Course Director, York University
Malavika Kasturi
Associate Professor, Department of Historical Studies, University of Toronto
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Panel II: Insurgent Politics – Multi-dimensions and Prospects
Chair/discussant:
Nadine Attewell
Associate Professor, Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University
Panelists:
Kenneth Cardenas
Doctoral Candidate, Graduate Programme in Geography, York University
Idrisa Pandit
Independent scholar and Adjunct Professor, Luther University College, Wilfrid Laurier University
Edward Hon-Sing Wong
Ph.D. Student, Department of Social Work, York University
Jonathan Hai
Mechatronics Engineering Student, McMaster University
On-site artwork exhibit: Provided by McMaster Stands with Hong Kong
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