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International Workshop18-19 April 2018 Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong KongKeynote speakers: Prof. Pei-Chia Lan, National Taiwan UniversityDr. Tamari Kitossa, Brock UniversityProf. Clarence Batan, University of Santo TomasProf. Susanne Choi, Chinese University of Hong Kong&#160;Plenary speakers: Prof. Franz Waldenberger, German Institute for Japanese Studies, The Max Weber Foundation Prof. Bandana Purkayastha, University of ConnecticutCall for papersSocial knowledge and knowledge production, on a global level, is heavily stratified. Most centers of social knowledge production, such as globally high-ranked universities,  ‘international’ academic journals, ‘competitive’ conferences and major funding bodies lie in Western countries. Producers  of social knowledge, especially those of greater influence and prestige, tend to be White, from Western societies, or had to undergo training at high-ranking Western universities and display in-depth familiarity with the academic and cultural grammars disseminated there.Critics in the fields of Postcolonialism, Cultural Studies, Global South-driven Critical Theory, and Critical Race and Whiteness Studies have argued that this imbalance in global knowledge production, initiated by imperialism and colonialism and maintained and re-inscribed by vast contemporary global inequalities,is systematically distorting the knowledge that is produced. As Walter Mignolo and others have pointed out, knowledge production is carried out under Western master frames or ‘cosmologies,’ which center and mainstream Western theory and findings as the scholarly ‘core’ and the foundation that new knowledge must be built on, while provincializing and trivializing non-Western past and present knowledge production, and relegating non-Western territories to sites for data collection.It has been argued that this stratification in knowledge production leads to Western and White lived experiences, perspectives, interests, and sensitivities being woven into social theory, which is subsequently not recognized as positioned, but mainstreamed and normalized as ‘general theory’. Conversely, theoretical and empirical work that is underpinned by, and focuses on, the lived experiences, perspectives and concerns of Non-White and Non-Western scholars, faces much stronger hurdles to recognition, and tends to be deselected, or assigned to the margins rather than the center of social knowledge: To a late session on the last day of a conference, to a roundtable, to a section on ‘regional’ issues in a journal, or to a job in ‘ethnic studies.’Situated as we are in a globally interconnected system with highly unequal distribution of resources,  burdens, and life chances, this highly stratified knowledge production is problematic,  and can even be dangerous. It is problematic because the social sciences are not accumulating knowledge on ‘the global social,’ but instead they are producing an incomplete, distorted version of it. It is dangerous because policy decisions of strong local and global influence are in danger of being made following partial, one-sided or even biased knowledges. For example, free trade agreements or other international policies, implemented based on supposedly neutral knowledge, benefit Western societies but are associated with increased social stratification, labor exploitation, environmental destruction, toxin dumping and other problems in the Global South. Elsewhere, migration policies are designed that focus on keeping out, screening and disciplining migrants, ignoring groundbreaking work by racialized scholars on the causes of and countermeasures against racism and discrimination by receiving society members.The aim of this workshop is to strengthen the dialogue, connections and collaboration of scholars pursuing ‘Southern’ or ‘Subaltern’ approaches. Scholars are invited to discuss research agendas, theories, methodological issues and empirical studies based on perspectives, experience, concerns and needs of people in the Global South and racialized or indigenous groups in the Global North. The workshop emphasizes thematic inclusiveness.All interested individuals are invited to submit papers as well as session proposals!About the Keynote speeches and Plenary talks:Prof. Lan's talk will be titled 'Raising Global Families: Transnational Relational Analysis of Class Inequality.' Investigating how middle and working class ethnic Chinese parents in Taiwan and the US perceive insecurities and mobilize resources to secure their children's future, it will examine the relational and interactive nature of social class on a transnational scale.Dr. Kitossa's talk 'Criminology as Necropolitics: The silencing of the genocidal imperative of determinism and ‘scientific’ morality'  will provide a critical perspective on criminology, showing how it aids empires feeding on death at home and abroad as a discipline of moral philosophy and a process for making ‘verifiable’ knowledge that refuses the recognition of the state as a criminal actor by its own definition. Prof. Batan's talk 'Philippine Sociology and the Global South Discourse: Contexts, Contentions &#38; Commitments' will  interrogate the history and development of Philippine Sociology in the context of Global South discourse, including  the critical space of knowledge production and disputes between local and international sociologies, and the promise of Sociology in responding (and the lack of it) to better understand contemporary social problems impinging Philippine society in relation to the global world.Prof. Choi's talk 'Masculinity and Precarity: Male Migrant Taxi Drivers in the Global South' will examine how these taxi drivers’ experience of a loss of control over their working conditions and increasing financial insecurity are driven by state regulation and market reorganization of the taxi industry, and their status as second-class citizens in urban areas.Prof. Waldenberger's talk will center on 'Ideologies and Progress,' drawing on the work of Yuval Noah Harari and on his research on the Japanese economy.Prof. Purkayastha's talk will provide a framework for studying migration, migrants and human security from a global lens, discussing how international migrants, internally-displaced persons, refugees, and trafficked persons form a part of a continuum of migrations influenced by political-economic processes occurring in glocal terrains of migration.&#160;Download the PDF version of the 2018 Call for Papers here!View the booklet of the 2017 Global South Perspectives workshop here!Please note: This workshop is organized back-to-back with the 6th Global Social Sciences Graduate Student Conference held on the 20th of April at Hong Kong Baptist University. Participants are welcome to attend and present at both events.Submission:Please submit abstracts (max. 250 words)to: globalsouthperspectives@gmail.comFinal Submission Deadline: March 20th 2018FAQ:1. Is there a registration fee?No. The workshop is free of charge.2. Do abstracts have to follow a certain format?Please use the standard international format. You can consult the following sources on how to write an abstract.How to write an abstract A How to write an abstract B How to write an abstract C3. Can I apply for a travel grant by submitting an abstract only?No, applicants for the travel grants have to submit a full paper.4. Are there travel grants for graduate students?Yes but the application deadline has already passed, and the applications are currently under review.5. Can you provide a letter of invitation?Yes, the workshop can provide letters of invitation upon request.6. Do you provide a certificate of presentation or certificate of attendance?We provide these documents upon request. Please tell us if you need one.7. Will you issue workshop proceedings?A conference proceedings pdf will be issued. Inclusion of a full paper will be on a voluntary basis.8. Can I participate without presenting?Yes, please register here:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSevTQSAw_X87aN_7brwD4az9p5TwUE3QkfwsOg78rgrWDVe8g/viewform?usp=sf_linkOrganized by: The Joint Research Group on Migration, China and the Global ContextMax Weber Foundation &#38; Faculty of Social Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University