Sinophone Borderlands Project
In 2018, the European Structural and Investment funds (ESIF), through its Operational Programme Research, Development, and Education, funded the Sinophone Borderlands project at Palacký University Olomouc. It is a 5 year project the aim of which is to introduce a new interdisciplinary approach towards rising China. The project leader is Ondřej Kučera.
The approach is grounded in the dialogue between key regions bordering on China and methodologies in humanities and social sciences. The key regions are Mainland and Insular Southeast Asia, Tibet, Central Asia, Russian Far East, and Taiwan. Each of these key regions is investigated by a number of researchers who are organised in disciplinary clusters: literature and linguistics, international relations and political science, material culture, anthropology, and socioeconomics. Investigated topics include international relations and conflict in the South-China Sea, Belt and Road Initiative, cross-border Chinese economic engagement in Russian Far East, changes to traditional production networks and taste in Central Asia, narrations of identity in Tibet and Taiwan, language contact and linguistic history of Taiwan and South China and others.
The project develops means to gauge China’s global impact and disseminates its findings to the public, scientific audiences, as well as national and EU policy makers. The international team conducts research on cultures and societies in the Chinese borderlands, Taiwan, Russia, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam and beyond.
The funding allows a substantial upgrade of the infrastructure of the research centre. Laboratories are being built for instrumental study of language, material culture, and statistical analysis of society. Once completed, these laboratories will enable the team to measure trends in language change, manufacturing competition, public opinion, or migration between China and its neighbours.
It is our long-term ambition to develop a permanent Research Centre for Asian studies in Olomouc and this project is an important milestone to that goal. The project brings an opportunity to host a number of important events in the near future which may bring you to Olomouc:
- 25-27 September 2020: 11th International Conference of the European Association of Chinese Linguistics, (EACL-11) https://sites.google.com/view/eacl-11/home
- 28 June-2 July 2021: 15th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (ICAL15)
- September 2021: The European Association for Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS 2021)
Detailed information about the project can be found at its website and social media: http://sinofon.cz