ICS Seminar Series - Ien Ang
Date: Thursday 6 August 2015
Time: 11.30am - 1pm
Venue: EE.G.02, UWS Parramatta South campus
Ien Ang
Smart Engagement with Asia: Leveraging Language, Research and Culture
Abstract
In 2012 the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) asked me to chair a national, multidisciplinary Expert Working Group to prepare a research report on 'Asia Literacy' as part of ACOLA's ARC-funded 'Securing Australia's Future' program, which aims to deliver 'evidence-based research and interdisciplinary findings to support policy development in areas of importance to Australia's future'. Australia's relationship with Asia has long been recognised as an important policy issue, but it has acquired renewed urgency as the so-called 'rise of Asia', and especially China and (to a lesser extent) India, gains momentum. The research report emanating from the work of the Expert Working Group, Smart Engagement with Asia: Leveraging Language, Research and Culture, focuses on three areas of engagement: the facilitative role of multilingualism in the context of English language dominance, the significance of research collaboration in building stronger transnational links across the region, and the crucial importance of deepening cultural relations to overcome the long history of culturally distant relationships between Australia and its neighbouring countries. Overall, the report argues that smart engagement with Asia requires going beyond short-termism, opportunism and focus on economic benefit, and working towards nurturing wide-ranging, long-term, and mutually beneficial relations, based on the principle of reciprocity. It also highlights the important role played by diasporas (Asians in Australia, as well as Australians in Asia) in strengthening Australia-Asia relations.
In this seminar presentation I will not only give an overview of the key findings of the report, but also provide some background to the making of the report, giving insight into some of the strategic discussions within the Expert Working Group with regard to the writing of a report like this. What does interdisciplinarity mean in this context? And how can one make some meaningful statements within the limitations of the genre of 'evidence-based research to support policy development'?
Biography
Distinguished Professor Ien Ang is a Professor of Cultural Studies and the founding Director of ICS. She is one of the leaders in cultural studies worldwide, with interdisciplinary work spanning many areas of the humanities and social sciences. Her books, including Watching Dallas, Desperately Seeking the Audience and On Not Speaking Chinese, are recognised as classics in the field and her work has been translated into many languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Turkish, German, Korean, and Spanish. Her most recent book, co-edited with E Lally and K Anderson, is The Art of Engagement: Culture, Collaboration, Innovation (University of Western Australia Press, 2011).