Shu-Fen Lin: The New “Social” Question: Refugee, Social Policy and State-Building in Wartime China

GUEST LECTURE

Shu-Fen Lin: The New “Social” Question: Refugee, Social Policy and State-Building in Wartime China

Date

30. 10. 2019 13:00

Location

Trainee centre 3.40, Vodární 6, Olomouc

Abstract

Over the last two decades or so, a growing literature on China during World War II (or the second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945) has taken a revisionist turn and reappraised the role and practices of the Nationalist Government, focusing on a wide array of the military-party-state’s attempts at furthering its project of modern state-building in the context of wartime exigencies and total mobilization. This talk discusses the war-state-building nexus as well as the warfare-welfare nexus by juxtaposing wartime and postwar refugee relief programs and the rather awkward position of the Ministry of Social Affairs. In so doing, it intends to shed light on changing perceptions of state-society relations of the Nationalist Government during the war and its immediate aftermath.

Bio

Shu-fen Lin is a professor in the Graduate Institute for Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Chiao-Tung University. She received her PhD in Ideology and Discourse Analysis from Department of Government, University of Essex (UK). Her field of research include radical political theories, democratization, social movements, governmentality studies, border and migration, and Cold War studies. She has published works on radical political theories and political transformation and social movements in Taiwan. She is currently working on a research project on the formation and transformation of migration regime in wartime China and postwar Taiwan.