Nordic-China Women & Gender Studies Conferences

In August 2005 the Second Nordic-China Women & Gender Studies Conference on the theme of Gender and Human Rights will be held at Malmv University in Sweden. The First Nordic-China Women & Gender Studies Conference was held in November 2002 at Fudan University in Shanghai. The theme of the Shanghai conference was Re-Negotiating the Politics of the Public and the Private - Gender and Politics in China and the Nordic Countries. The 70 participants came mainly from China and the Nordic countries but also from other parts of Europe and Asia.

The aim of the Nordic-China Women and Gender Studies Conferences is to enable exchange between scholars working on Nordic and Chinese gender issues. The aim is also to bring together Nordic and Chinese scholars, while at the same time participants from anywhere in the world are welcome to attend the conferences. The Nordic countries and China differ in many, many ways. Why then compare studies of China and the Nordic countries? There are both similarities and differences in the topics that are addressed by gender studies and in the methodologies and theoretical approaches that are applied to research in the Nordic countries and in China. Importantly, the cross-cultural comparison of research foci, methodologies and theories in the different cultural and political contexts can provide the basis for constructive and thought provoking dialogue as well as increased knowledge.  

The conferences are convened by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies http://www.nias.ku.dk and the Nordic Centre at Fudan University in China. The plan is to convene Nordic-China Women and Gender Studies Conferences every three years alternatively at a Chinese and Nordic University.