The Australia-Netherlands Research Collaboration (ANRC)

Transmission of Academic Values in Asian Studies workshop, 25 & 26 June 2009, The Australian National University, Canberra

CALL FOR PAPERS flyer, including confirmed speakers

This workshop proposes to examine issues surrounding the transmission of scholarly values in Asian Studies. It will draw upon the views of scholars from a range of life-stages in order to seek a clearer picture of the values that scholars see as important to preserve and of the techniques for achieving transmission between the generations. A feature of the workshop will be attention to differences in values and practice between Australia and other countries.

The values to be discussed include markers of scholarly excellence such as rigorous attention to empirical detail (including language competence), interpretative bravura, and theoretical sophistication, as well as markers of social significance such as policy relevance and the accessibility of writing to a broader public. They also include values related to ethical behaviour in research (both in relation to other researchers and in relation to informants and others who contribute to research) and to the issue of engagement with political and social affairs. A particularly important issue is that of inter-generational relations: how do younger scholars balance the need for loyalty to their mentors with the need for creating a reputation of their own by overthrowing previous generations? How do senior scholars respond to being debunked?

Identifying these values will lead us to the question of how to transmit them. The styles of interaction between researchers and postgraduate students vary greatly from country to country and indeed from supervisor to supervisor. In Australia, institutional regulation of research ethics and research best practice has been greeted with some hostility by practical researchers, but there has been little progress in identifying how better outcomes might be achieved with less institutional regulation.

A small part of the workshop is likely to focus on the practical issue of recruiting successive new generations of scholars.

Because most researchers are unaccustomed to discussing such issues at length, presentations will take the form of brief, ‘trigger’-style statements and participants will be asked to contribute written statements of no more than two pages prior to the discussion. Nonetheless, we expect that the discussion will clarify issues in a way that will enable 3-4 full length papers to arise from the workshop for publication as a symposium within a journal. We expect that the workshop will make a valuable contribution to developing a sense of the wide variety of possible best practice in this field.

To our knowledge there has been no previous workshop in Asian Studies focussing on the transmission of the distinctive scholarly values of the field in a cross-national comparative perspective. This workshop will contribute to developing research methodology for understanding the internal dynamics of academic life in Asian Studies.

We now invite proposals for brief presentations (15-20 mins) on one or more themes of the workshop. We are keen to include Asian Studies researchers from every career stage (postgraduate to post-retirement) and we encourage colleagues to think imaginatively about those features of the field that are precious and need to be handed from one generation to the next. We will ask for each presentation to be summarized on a single A4 sheet for prior distribution to participants.

Speakers will receive their cost of air travel within Australia and accommodation in Canberra for the duration of the workshop.

The deadline for submission is 27 February 2009, but early submission would be appreciated. For further information or for submission of proposals, please contact Helen.McMartin[at]anu.edu.au

We would like to acknowledge the generous financial support received from the ARC Asia Pacific Futures Research Network, for this workshop.