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WORLDMAKING FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE:
A DIALOGUE WITH CHINA
從全球視閾看“世界”的建構：對話中國

Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups

Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups

Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups
Image Credit: Jannis Schulze

The project “Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups” explores transformations of conceptions of world order from the late nineteenth century to the present. Our researchers explore various patterns and rhythms of world order-related thinking (particularly in relation to China) in different parts of the world. In this context, the project not only analyzes images of global political and economic power formations but also includes into the picture other factors like cultural hegemonies or global social and religious movements.

In the English language, the concept of “world order” primarily refers to basic (sometimes even institutionalized) facets of global political and economic power formations. It is often used interchangeably with concepts such as “global order” or even “international order”. Among other currents, social movements (including NGOs) are increasingly identified as crucial aspects of world order; moreover, many scholars are interested in the importance of global soft power including cultural hegemonies. Others pay attention to the significance of religiously inspired ideals in shaping imageries on world order. Visions of the world certainly have the potential to include such complexities into the bigger picture, but at the same time they need to offer a relatively clear image of a global situation. Hence visions of world order are at least partially abstractions of global power relations. There is a strong tendency to exaggerate specific facets of international power and worldwide interactions when presenting them as patterns of worldwide order. It hence would be naïve to view visions of world order merely as reflections of global realities; they simultaneously represent imagined worlds.

Our research related to this project focuses on visions of world order among various social carrier groups. Within this framework, we study themes that are highly relevant for the present while at the same time paying due attention to complex historical configurations. In various case studies, we explore how particular visions of world order have been shaped by their specific contexts and concrete circumstances. Furthermore, we probe into selected visions of world order in different parts of the world (e.g. China and Europe) and partly compare them to one another and partly search for entanglements and connections. In what ways have the changing patterns and rhythms of ideas about world order been connected with one another across regions and continents? Under what circumstances did particular social carrier groups primarily identify with their own local or national environments? And under what circumstances did ideas of shared transnational interest prevail in debates on world order?


Activities of this project: Talks, Lectures, Presentations, Workshops, Interviews

Annual Conference 2023 of the Joint Center "The Making of Epochal Events: Narrating Turning Points in Chinese History"

The Joint Center's annual conference was held at Heidelberg University from June 15-17, 2023. The event brought together project members and fellows from all sites involved in the Joint Center as well as other invited scholars around the theme "The Making of Epochal Events: Narrating Turning Points in Chinese History,". The event engaged with the question in how far events are “epochal” at all, whether they necessarily mark a break with the past, thus promising the dawning of a new epoch, a “new reality” (Simon), or whether the “epochal” can also be constructed to make a claim of historical discontinuity that might be quite at odds with the experiences of the actors involved.

Publication of the article "Homeland, magnet, and refuge: Mecca in the travels and imaginaries of Chinese Muslims" by Janice Hyeju Jeong

On May 25, 2023, the article "Homeland, magnet, and refuge: Mecca in the travels and imaginaries of Chinese Muslims" by Janice Hyeju Jeong (Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups) was published in the journal Modern Asian Studies.

Lecture Series by Göttingen’s Visiting Fellows

Between May and June 2023, the visiting fellows of the project "Conceptions of World Order and their Carrier Groups" present their research projects at the University of Göttingen to the public.

Workshop "Worldmaking in a Sinophone Context: Conceptions, Processes and Practices"

The workshop "Worldmaking in a Sinophone Context - Conceptions, Processes and Practices", March 31-April 1, 2023, explored theoretical concepts of worldmaking through empirical examples in China. Project members, (former) fellows and new colleagues came together and presented their research as work-in-progress in various stages on historical and current processes and practices. From the project "Conceptions of World Order and their Carrier Groups", Andreas Weis participated.

DVCS 32th Annual Conference 2022 with contributions by the Joint Center

December 9 – 11, 2022, the 32th Annual Conference of the German Association for Chinese Studies (DVCS) on the topic “Sustainability: China's approach to the environment and posterity in the past and present” took place at the Centre for Chinese Studies at Kiel University. The Joint Center had been represented by members from three of the center’s locations presenting their research in five out of eight panels.

Workshop "Islamic Pasts and Futures in East Asia’s Worldmaking"

Between September 22-23, the Göttingen sub-project hosted a workshop entitled “Islamic Pasts and Futures in East Asia’s Worldmaking.” The co-organizers were motivated by the pressing problems of the present: state-led securitization and localization campaigns across China, which has found expression in the most extreme form in the ongoing crisis in Xinjiang, and less pervasive yet parallel phenomenon observable elsewhere in Asia. The workshop brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from international locations – including Germany, France, Turkey, Switzerland, Singapore, Korea, Japan, and the United States – to reflect on the current moment, pasts, and futures of Islam(s) and Muslims across East Asia.

Lecture Series "Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups"

In July 2022, as part of the lecture series "Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups", the University of Göttingen hosted three talks. Eugenio Menegon (Boston University) showed the importance of cross-cultural circulation of knowledge about China. Shoufu Yin (British University of Columbia) demonstrated in his talk methods that allow to write intellectual histories that decenters Western Europe and China. Wen Shuang (New York University Shanghai) narrated four little-known stories of Arab-Chinese entanglement in the age of trans-imperial collaboration.

Digital Dialogues #8: Nationalism in China and Europe: Global Divergence and Convergence of an Idea

As part of the Joint Center's Digital Workshop Series "Digital Dialogues," Stefan Berger and Xin Fan looked at the role of nationalism in the formation and dissolution of modern China and Europe over the course of the twentieth century by comparing them to each other, looking beyond the ethnocentric framework of historical interpretations.

Network meeting "Krise und Neuordnung" (Crisis and Reordering)

Between June 13 and 14, 2022, members of the Joint Center for Advanced Studies participated in the network meeting Krise and Neuordnung (Crisis and Reordering) organized by the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and the University of Hamburg. The event dealt with questions of what constitutes “crisis” across political, environmental and economic domains, and the forms of global and national re-ordering that emerge out of crises.

Annual Conference of the Joint Center "Global Conflicts, Global Collaboration: China in a Changing World Order"

From June 2 – 4, 2022, Göttingen University hosted the annual conference of the Joint Center. This event brought together project members and fellows from all the Joint Center’s participating locations, as well as additional invited scholars. Under the umbrella of the theme "Global Conflicts, Global Collaboration: China in a Changing World Order", the conference – among other subjects – discussed arenas where shared global issues emerge but also become sources of geopolitical contestations.

Public Lecture "Homeland, Refuge, and Magnet: Mecca in the Travels and Imaginaries of Chinese Muslims" by Janice Hyeju Jeong

Hosted by the project "Social Worlds: China's Cities as Places of Worldmaking" (Würzburg), Janice Hyeju Jeong, postdoctoral fellow in the project " Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups" (Göttingen), gave a lecture on May 11, 2022, on the topic "Homeland, Refuge, and Magnet: Mecca in the Travels and Imaginaries of Chinese Muslims."

Article "Little Mecca in Canton: representations and resurgences of the graveyard of Sa’d ibn Abī Waqqās" by Janice Hyeju Jeong

In February 2022, the journal History and Anthropology published the article “Little Mecca in Canton: representations and resurgences of the graveyard of Sa’d ibn Abī Waqqās”, authored by Janice Hyeju Jeong, postdoctoral researcher of the project “Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups” at the Joint Center at University of Göttingen.

Presentation „China in Latin America – Some Observations“ by Benjamin Creutzfeldt

On December 21, 2021, as part of an online lecture at the University of Göttingen, Dr. Benjamin Creutzfeldt, fellow in the project "Conceptions of World Order and Their Carrier Groups," provided insights into his field of research on China's relations with Latin America.

Workshop "Africa in Shifting Global Contexts: The Roles of China and the EU"

As part of the workshop "Africa in Shifting Global Contexts: The Roles of China and the EU" held on December 14-15, 2021, national and international scholars discussed the roles of China and the EU for the African continent.

Digital Dialogues #4 "India-China Connections from Subaltern Perspectives"

The history of India-China connections has long been explored from elite perspectives, while few have ever paid attention to how ordinary Indians and Chinese interacted and how their lives were connected. As part of the Digital Workshop Series" of the Joint Center, Cao Yin, associate professor at the Tsinghua University, presented cases from the first half of the twentieth century, including the experiences of Sikh policemen in Shanghai during the Interwar Period and Chinese deserter in India during the Second World War.

Book Talk "Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development, and Control in Western China" by Alessandro Rippa

On December 7, 2021, the project "Conceptions of World Order and Their Social Carrier Groups" hosted a book talk by Alessandro Rippa from the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Rippa presented his findings from his recently published book "Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development, and Control in Western China".

Digital Dialogues #2 "Global Visions of Place and Belonging: Sojourners from China and the Arab World"

As part of the Digital Workshop Series "Digital Dialogues" of the Joint Center, Dr. Mohammed Al-Sudairi and Dr. Janice Hyeju Jeong discussed sojourners who traversed between China and the Arab world at pivotal moments in the twentieth century. The speakers highlighted the tensions between the romanticized imaginaries and realities, and the projection of the writers' societal circumstances onto their conceptualizations.

Guest Lecture "The Inter-State Order of Post-Tang East Asia" by Nicolas Tackett (Berkeley)

Whereas a few decades ago the pre-20th-century "Chinese world order" was typically treated as unchanging across the vast span of the impirial period, this lecture by Nicolas Tackett was based on the consideration that interstate systems evolve significantly over time. Against this backdrop, Nicolas Tackett, professor of history at U.C. Berkeley, illuminates the fall of the Tang dynasty as a pivotal moment that ushered in a very different East Asian world order.

Conceptualizing Planetary Humanities - A Public Panel

This public panel was part of a workshop hosted by Bo Strath, John Noyes & Dominic Sachsenmaier. It discussed some of the major themes, contours, contexts, interventions, challenges, or potential pitfalls of the humanities understood as a planetary endeavor. The two panels (about one hour each) have been broadcast on youtube livestream.

Guest Lecture "Nationalism and the Crisis of Modernity" by Prasenjit Duara

On June 3, 2021, hosted by the University of Göttingen, Prasenjit Duara gave a guest lecture on "Nationalism and the Crisis of Modernity." Prasenjit Duara is the Oscar Tang Chair of East Asian Studies at Duke University. He argues that the nation form is the ‘epistemic engine’ driving the globally circulatory and doxic Enlightenment ideal of the conquest of nature and perpetual growth that sustains the runaway technosphere.

Presentation "Circulations and Convergences: Mecca in the Conceptions and Mobilities of Chinese Muslim Diasporas in Saudi Arabia" by Dr. Janice Hyeju Jeong

On May 17, 2021, Dr. Janice Hyeju Jeong delivered a digital lecture on "Circulations and Convergences: Mecca in the Conceptions and Mobilities of Chinese Muslim Diasporas in Saudi Arabia" at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HKIHSS), the University of Hong Kong. An article relating to the lecture and an interview with Janice Jeong appeared in "The Diplomat" in July 2021.