On June 21-22, 2023, Ewha Womans University (the Graduate School of International Studies and Institute for International and Area Studies) co-hosted – together with the Association for Asian Studies – a symposium on Cultivating the Humanities and Social Sciences: Mainstreaming the Margins. More than 60 researchers from 10 countries  gathered to share experiences and ideas about bringing alternative and diverse perspectives into humanities and social science research. 

The symposium cultivated such diversity by highlighting the research of scholars from the margins (e.g., former colonies, indigenous groups, women) and about the margins. For example, a researcher from Timor-Leste presented her research documenting the role of women in the resistance against occupation. A researcher from Nepal presented his findings about how ethnic minority groups preserve customary governance arrangements alongside formal state institutions. A researcher from India screened video testimonies of stateless people claiming their identities. And two researchers (one from Indonesia, one from Thailand) uncovered the socio-cultural harms inflicted by economic growth-rationalized infrastructure development.

   

Diversity was also evident in research methods – ranging from quantitative analysis of official statistics to intimate ethnographic studies and storytelling. One quantitative study of women’s role in family planning analyzed a range of published datasets to draw correlations between different aspects of women’s empowerment (economic, social) and family planning decisions. Among the more creative research methods employed was the recording of audio and audio-visual stories (even poetry) as told by women resistance activists in Timor-Leste, genocide victims and perpetrators in Cambodia, and stateless people claiming their identities in India. These alternative forms of data and “evidence” are no less compelling for being outside the mainstream academic practice.