Final Report Summary - CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS (Cross-cultural Encounters – the Travels of Gender Theory and Practice to China and the Nordic Countries) With the gracious consent of the senior researcher, Dr Cecilia Milwertz, this report has been written by MSCA Fellow Dr Min Dongchao..This interdisciplinary project is concerned with the cross-cultural translation of knowledge and practices that may or may not take place when different cultures interact, and the resulting production of new knowledge. Taking the travelling routes of gender theory and practice into – and also between – China and the Nordic countries as the empirical object of study, the project will focus on the crucial questions of why and how knowledge travels or fails to travel. The project will explore in which forms and by whom knowledge is sent, received, understood, translated, or even rejected. The project then seeks to assess the impact of these travels.The major objectives of the project are:- The main objective of this project is to develop an interdisciplinary theoretical framework in the form of an alternative travelling theory to facilitate an improved understanding of the cross-cultural translation of feminist knowledge, theory and practice. - Another objective has been the transfer of knowledge to the research group Mapping the Human Landscapes of EurAsia, based at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), the project’s European host, through convening a series of workshops for the research group and through ongoing informal discussions and exchanges.- The last objective has been to make potential impacts by creating long-term academic collaborations between the host institution, NIAS, and Shanghai University and beyond, by contributing theoretical frameworks to academic communities, sharing my Asian network with the networks in Europe, and by organizing a series of outreach activities such as interviews and newspaper and magazine articles.The two years of the project have recently concluded. The performance of the project is demonstrated below: - I have advanced the state of the art in the combined field of theories of globalization, transnational feminism, travelling theory and cultural translation. These were applied to develop an ‘alternative travelling theory’ as an interdisciplinary methodology. The project has grounded the methodology in real-life discussions and debates, actual trajectories of concepts, and the historical complexities of academic and activist feminism, explored through the publications (please see below). - Transfer of knowledge has taken place mainly through workshops, conferences and lectures: a workshop on ‘Knowledge Production in the Context of Globalization: Travelling Theory and Cultural Translation’ was held by the incoming fellow at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark in November 2013. A special session on Travelling Theory and Cultural Translation was organized by the incoming fellow at the 8th Annual Nordic NIAS Council conference, ‘A Multitude of Encounters with Asia: Gender Perspectives’ in Reykjavik, Iceland, held in November 2014 (please see section 3).- The impacts of the project have included setting up several international links between universities in Europe and China, and disseminating an interdisciplinary methodology for ‘alternative travelling theory’ among some academic communities in Europe. Outreach activities have taken the form of interviews and presentations of papers at international conferences in Europe and China (please see section 3).The main results achieved during the first phase of the project are: - Journal articles:1) ‘Toward an Alternative Travelling Theory’, Signs – Journal of Women and Culture 39, no. 3 (2014): 584-92. 2) ‘Travelling Theory Re-appraisal’, Zhejiang Academic Journal 4 (2014): 177-88 (in Chinese).- Finalized book manuscripts: 1) The book manuscript Transnational Feminism and Beyond: Translating Feminist Theory and Praxis in China has been finalized and will be submitted to Ashgate Publishing in May 2015, with expected publication in 2015. 2) The incoming fellow has co-edited the book Revisiting Gender Inequality: Perspectives from the People’s Republic of China. The book was submitted at the end of March and will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015.- International conference:Organized the special session on Travelling Theory and Cultural Translation at the 8th Annual NNC conference (2014) in Reykjavik, Iceland, ‘A Multitude of Encounters with Asia: Gender Perspectives’. Leading scholars of gender studies and other subjects from Europe and Asia took part in this session. Seven papers from this session are in the process of being published in journals; they are also in the process of being translated into Chinese and will be published in China. A new network of research groups on Travelling Theory and Cultural Translation has been developed through this conference.- International links between universities in Europe and ChinaIn 2013 links between the University of Shanghai and the University of Copenhagen were strengthened when a teacher from the University of Copenhagen taught at a summer school at Shanghai University and the Dean of the Social Sciences Faculty of the University of Copenhagen visited Shanghai University. After I visited the Department of Design and Communication at the University of Southern Denmark and Tianjin Normal University during 2013, the two universities were supported in setting up an exchange programme, initiated in 2014. A meeting with scholars at Aalborg University, Denmark in March 2015 will lead to a new phase of international links between Aalborg University and Shanghai University: joint MA and PhD programmes will be developed.With regard to the expected final results of the project and their potential impact and use, some very positive remarks from scholars and students are a good indication. After they read my articles or participated in the workshop, conference and my lectures, they told me in person or by email that ideas of alternative travelling theory and cultural translation were ‘unusually interesting’ and ‘very inspiring’. Some said that they would use them as a key idea for their research and teaching, for instance as a key research frame for a post-doctoral application, or for teaching a cross-cultural PhD course. In the light of this, I believe that the project will be significant for the European Research Area, as well as for society and public opinion in the context of increased cross-cultural interaction between Europe and Asia. Related documents final1-agreement-with-ashgate-of-my-book.pdf
