Tag: Asia

Categories
Asia Higher education and research

The Importance of the Asia-Africa Relationship

Photo by Suhyun Choi

The relationship between Asia and Africa is a longstanding one, historically, and has been growing exponentially in recent years though increased investment and trade. Chinese porcelaine from the 9th century has been found in the archaeological site of Great Zimbabwe and the cotton trade from India to Africa dates back to the time of Herodotus in the 5th century BCE. I had the pleasure of organizing a presentation at UBC on May 29th by Dr. Renu Modi of the University of Mumbai on the manufacturing of textiles – mainly kanga and vitenge (the plural of kitenge) in India for the growing African market. China is also highly involved in the manufacturing of this cloth used primarily for the garment industry. Dr. Modi presented her documentary film, Common Threads, which was featured recently in the Zanzibar International Film Festival. Approximately 40 people were in attendance. Thank you Renu!

 

Categories
Asia Higher education and research

Report from The Netherlands and Belgium

I’m delighted to have been invited to speak at the European Institute of Asian Studies in Brussels on Wednesday, January 27th. The topic of my presentation was “Women’s Access to Public Space in Asia: India, Thailand and the Philippines in Comparative Perspective” based on a recent draft book chapter based on many years of past work. Merci pour cette belle opportunité!

On Thursday, January 28th, I had the pleasure of participating in and speaking at the final event for the NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) funded CATCH Program (Continuous Access to Cultural Heritage). CATCH is an interdisciplinary research program involving computer science, humanities scholars and cultural institutions. It has been a privilege to serve on the International Scientific Advisory Board for this program over the past four years. We also took the opportunity to celebrate the career contributions of Professor Jaap van den Herik, a pioneer in computer science and digital humanities. Hartelijk bedankt!

Categories
Asia Food and agriculture

Feeding Asian Cities – Nourrir les villes d’Asie

In 2001, I was asked to edit and write the introduction to a collection of papers presented at a regional seminar in Bangkok in 2000, which I was also engaged in, on the topic of Feeding Asian Cities. The full text can in English can be downloaded here: http://www.cityfarmer.org/FeedingAsianCities.pdf.  La version française est disponible ici:  ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/007/y3399f/y3399f00.pdf.