Birmingham-Warwick Joint Conference: The Geopolitics of Memory in the Indo-Pacific

Call for Papers

Memory, whether inscribed in monuments, textbooks, films, digital media, or diplomatic discourse, serves as a potent political tool that legitimises contemporary foreign policies, justifies strategic partnerships, underpins institutional frameworks, and fuels regional disputes.

This conference seeks to unpack the geopolitics of memory in the Indo-Pacific, surrounding the different regional, national, and localised experiences of war and other geopolitical events; and to explore how the past is remembered, how memory shapes present-day politics, and how present-day politics shape memory.

Papers should seek to address at least one of the following thematic questions:

• How do international relations and domestic politics complicate interpretations of history at regional and/or national level/s?
• How are politics, policy and society shaped by interpretations of history?
• What are the key mechanisms and sites of memory being leveraged in competitions over history? What is remembered, what is marginalised, and what is forgotten?
• How do state and/or non-state actors attempt to penetrate and govern everyday historical consciousness to achieve their (geo)political goals?
• How are transnational and global memory movements, such as those related to post-colonialism, feminism and human rights, influencing and/or being co-opted into national and/or regional memory politics in the Indo-Pacific?

We encourage submissions adopting different theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives from scholars at all career stages.

Selected papers will be submitted to The Pacific Review as a special issue on the geo-politics of memory in the Indo-Pacific.

Submission Details

Deadline: Friday 30th of January

Please submit abstracts to Dr Max Warrack (max.a.q.warrack@warwick.ac.uk) and Professor Julie Gilson (j.a.gilson@bham.ac.uk)

Acceptance emails and the programme will be send by the end of February.

Please reach out to Max and Julie for any questions.

Panel 1: Mnemonic Cartographies and Spatial Imaginaries (09:30-11:00)

Chair: Julie Gilson (University of Birmingham)

• Ahmad Rizky M. Umar (Aberystwyth University) - Cold War Anxiety and the Construction of Regional Order in Southeast Asia
• Scott Edwards (Universiti Malaya) & Robert Yates (University of Bristol) - There and Back Again: Whimsy and Imperialism in the UK's Nostalgic Indo-Pacific Diplomacy
• Natsumi Shiino (University of Warwick) - Memory Politics and the Making of Japan’s FOIP: History as a Strategic Narrative for National Legitimation
• Titipol Phakdeewanich (Ubon Ratchathani University) - Memory of Geopolitical Rivalry and Engagement in the Mekong
• Xiangfeng Yang (Lingnan University) - China's Victorhood Pivot: The Contest for the Post-War Order

Panel 2: Critical Approaches to Memory (11:15-12:45)

Chair: Yi Wang (University of Birmingham)

• Veronica Barfucci (University of Warwick) - The Gendered Politics of Memory: Masculinity and War Remembrance in Japan
• Tsering Topgyal (University of Birmingham) - Narrative “Self-Grasping” and Ontological Insecurity (Tibet, Uyghur, Mongol)
• June McCabe (University of Warwick) - The JSDF as a Post-Modern Military Organization: Memory, Reflexivity, and the Construction of an Institutional Narrative of Self
• Max Warrack (University of Warwick) - History as Neta: How the Manga Industry Hollows Out Japan’s Traumatic Past
• Claudia Junghyun Kim (City University of Hong Kong) - Victimhood and Status-Seeking in the Indo-Pacific

Panel 3: Strategic Narratives and the Geopolitics of Memory (13:30-15:00)

Chair: Chi Zhang (University of Warwick)

• Vincent K. Chang (Leiden University) - Securitising the Past: Emerging Memory Alliances and China’s Mnemonic Statecraft
• Ka-Ho "Frank" Wong (City University of Hong Kong) - Axis of Memory: Sino‑Russian Victory Parades and Mnemonic Deterrence in the Indo‑Pacific
• Yi Wang (University of Birmingham) - Managing the Past: Mnemonic Governance, Strategic Constraints, and the History Problem between China and Japan
• Ivo Plsek (Uppsala University) - From Silence to Salience: How Yasukuni Became a Transnational Conflict
• Dion Maulana Prasetya (Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang) - The Majapahit Myth and the Middle Power Burden: Contesting Greatness in Indonesia’s Indo-Pacific Strategy

Panel 4: Asymmetric Memories and Strategic Friction (15:15-16:45)

Chair: Veronica Barfucci (University of Warwick)

• Juanita Elias, Aila Trasi, Lena Rethel (University of Warwick) & Poppy S. Winanti (Universitas Gadjah Mada) - The Politics of Memory and the Asian Financial Crisis: Between Myth and Materiality
• P. Anh Nguyen & Chaeyoung Yong
  (University of St Andrews) - Emotional Hierarchies and Memory Activism: South Korea’s Management with a Violent Past in the Vietnam War
• Umme Wara (University of Warwick) & Afrida Nawar Evana (Bangladesh University) - Divergent Memories of 1971: Genocide, Denial, and the Geopolitics of Memory in Bangladesh and Pakistan
• Key-Young Son (Korea University) & Xiangfeng Yang (Lingnan University) - Remembering War, Backgrounding Hierarchy: Historical Memory, Asymmetry, and Order in China–South Korea Relations
• Astha Chadha (Ritsumeikan University) - Exegesis and Gendered Erasure of Memory in Post-2020 Pakistan-Bangladesh Relations

Panel 5: Internal Mobilization and Legitimacy (17:00-18:30)

Chair: Tsering Topgyal (University of Birmingham)

• Brendan Howe (Ewha Womans University) -Persecution and Paying Back Syndrome: How History Shaped South Korean Geopolynomic Positioning
• Giuseppe Paparella (King’s College London) - Coercing Taiwan: China, Military Mobilization, and the Abuse of Sun Yat-sen’s Historical Memory
• Licheng Qian (Birmingham City University) - Remembering the Nanjing Massacre: A Study of Two Memorials
• Nicola Leveringhaus (King’s College London) - The Ethics of Nuclear Weapons Commemoration
• Maryolanda Zaini (University of Siena) - Memory Politics in Postcolonial Indonesia: The Case of Datuk Tabano of Kampar