What does EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) mean in Asian Arts Departments?

This talk addresses flashpoints that have emerged in recent and expanding conversations on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion agenda (EDI, DEI) in universities and public/ corporate institutions across the Global North. At the same time, these discussions have also overlapped with new initiatives on curricular interventions and teaching/research/creative practice around the broader and critical topic of decolonisation. How do these parallel strands (largely discoursed with specific terminologies) map across the world, and specifically in very different Asian education and Asian arts practice contexts, where notions of social/ political/ artistic progressivity are unevenly understood, prioritised, observed and put into action? What can diverse, transnational and intersectional Asian ‘scenes’ offer as alternative centres of globalisation (and increasing economic and political power/ privilege) to these agenda, which have primiarily been discoursed in Anglo-American circles? What are the specific and unique challenges on the ground, and also systematically experienced across organisations and institutions, in hierarchised and competing forms of minorizations (by ethnicity, Indigeneity, gender, class, education etc) today? This conversation attempts to unpick some of the intentions behind EDI/ EDI in ‘Asian contexts’ - however ‘Asian’ might be defined, and offer some perspectives for devising collaborative and empathetic paths forwards.

Time: 2024.12.30 (Mon.) 02:00-04:00 pm

Venue: Alois Osterwalder Hall, NTNU GIEM（2F, No.31, Shida Rd. Taipei）

◎ This lecture is sponsored by BEST Program, Office of Bilingual Education, NTNU.

Guest Lecturer: Shzr Ee Tan

Shzr Ee Tan is a Reader and ethnomusicologist (with a specialism in Sinophone and Southeast Asian worlds) at Royal Holloway, University of London. As Vice Dean EDI for the School of Performing and Digital Arts, she is committed to decolonial and EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) work in music and the performing arts, with interests in how race discourses intersect problematically with class, gender and recent debates on posthuman digitalities, climate change and multispecies thinking.

Organizer:

Graduate Institute of Ethnomusicology, National Taiwan Normal University