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The York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR) is a community of York University researchers who are committed to analyzing the changing historical and contemporary dynamics of societies in Asia, understanding Asia’s place in the world, and studying the experiences of Asian communities in Canada and around the globe. Our inter-disciplinary membership includes faculty, students and other research associates from across the social sciences, humanities, health, education, creative/performing arts, law and business.
Some common themes characterize much of the research that YCAR fosters and supports. First, we adopt an explicitly transnational approach to research, meaning that we seek to understand connections within Asia, between Asia and the rest of the world, and between Asia and its diasporas. Second, we value research that is based on extended field and archival research, language study and the long-term development of expertise. Third, we emphasize a critical and engaged model of scholarship, attentive to social justice agendas that seek to address exclusions or inequalities based class, gender, sexuality, ‘race’, caste, religion, region or environmental dispossession. Often, this involves collaboration with the communities being studied in the research process, and the mobilization of research findings to effect public education and social change.
The role of the Centre in the work of individual researchers is to create a space for interdisciplinary intellectual exchange, to provide administrative support for research projects, and to enrich student training through fieldwork and language awards and a graduate diploma programme. We also provide an access point for anyone interested in York expertise on Asia and Asian communities, and we actively seek to deliver research to the widest possible audience.
Founded in 2002, YCAR continues a strong tradition of internationally recognized research in Asian Studies at York, pioneered since 1974 by the Joint Centre on Modern East Asia, and the Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies (both in collaboration with the University of Toronto).
Collections in this community
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Asia Colloquia Papers
This series aims to make available to wider audiences the content of selected lectures, seminars and other talks presented at YCAR. -
Asia Research Briefs
These briefs provide short summaries of research by YCAR Associates. -
New Voices in Asian Research
A special occasional paper series featuring award-winning undergraduate research papers.
Recent Submissions
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New Directions in Environmental Governance in Southeast Asia
(2020-09)This work examines neoliberalizing changes in environmental governance and argues that the implications for local resource users cannot be simply read off of how these projects are designed, but need to be understood in ... -
The (Un)Making of the Working Class in Karachi (Pakistan), 1980s–2010s
(2020-08)Ayyaz Mallick (Environmental Studies) summarizes his dissertation which aimed to understand the decline of Karachi, Pakistan’s vibrant labour movement and the proliferation of exclusivist ethnic politics in the post-1970s ... -
Views on the Model Minority Stereotype in a South Asian Canadian Context
(2020)Safa’s study focused on the Model Minority Stereotype (MMS), which depicts Asians as scoring high in certain seemingly positive attributes (e.g., competence and achievement), whilst also scoring high in seemingly negative ... -
Understandings of Military Power, Intoxication and Love in Kashmir, India
(2020)In her essay, Harkit considers how patients at the Drug De-addiction Centre in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir reconfigure their relationship to substance abuse through the performance of alternate narratives that ... -
Understanding Trends in Authoritarian Populism by Examining the Crackdown on the Cambodian Free Press
(2020)Examining trends in authoritarian populism by examining the crackdown on the Cambodian free press. The study focuses on Cambodia’s crackdown on the free press in the lead up to their national election in 2017 in order to ... -
Digitizing Ration Cards: Curbing Corruption or Securing Food Security for All?
(2020)Examining India’s attempts to reduce bureaucratic corruption within the systems used to distribute food rations to poor households across the country through the digitization of ration cards. -
The 2017 Housing Occupation in the Philippines: A Counter-Project for Livable Homes and an Alternative Lifeworld
(2020)On 8 March 2017, in what would become known as ‘Occupy Bulacan,’ the urban poor group KADAMAY and thousands of its organized members from different cities and towns occupied 5,300 idled government-built socialized housing ... -
International Higher Education and Social Stratification: Education Migration Narratives of Chinese International Students in Toronto
(2020)The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is experiencing studying abroad fever. The pursuit of international higher education (IHE) is no longer just for knowledge acquisition but has taken on a new significance for the middle ... -
The Social Life of Flooding in Jakarta
(2020)The issues around flooding have increasingly received attention in a variety of fields, and Jakarta has been a primary case study. Jakartans, at different times and under different circumstances, make sense of flooding and ... -
Planning for the Management of Indian Wetland Regions
(2019)India's Kerala is facing a shortage in its total agricultural production. The share of rice production from Kuttanad region is around 30% of the state’s total production. This research paves the way for the preparation ... -
Should the Chinese Language be Taught in Putonghua? Contested Identities in Post-1997 Hong Kong
(2017-12-30)This talk by Po King Choi was the inaugural Bernard H. K. Luk Memorial Lecture organized by the York Centre for Asian Research on 27 April 2017. Bernard H. K. Luk (1946-2016) was a Professor of History at York University, ... -
A Spell to Empower Women: Religion, Culture and Domestic Violence in Pakistan
(2017-11-15)In this essay, Behzad analyzes themes of gender, violence and nationalism in Rukhsana Ahmad’s short story, “The Spell and the Ever-Changing Moon.” The story is about a Pakistani woman, Nisa, who turns to black magic in an ... -
From Roots to Rhizomes: Hybrid, Diasporic Identities in Hema and Kaushik
(2017-07-20)Rahman analyzes diasporic Indian characters from Jhumpa Lahiri’s book of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth. Focusing on two characters, Hema and Kaushik, Rahman draws out themes of displacement, genealogy and gender to ... -
The Making of Bangladesh
(2017-07-20)In this paper, Alavi brings together an interview and academic scholarship on the 1971 partition of East and West Pakistan and the independence of Bangladesh. Throughout the paper, the author works through theories of ...
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