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Asian Futures: Anarchism | Anachronism

Photo of man walking in Phnom Penh
February 10, 2023
3:30PM - 5:00PM
Hagerty Hall 198A

Date Range
Add to Calendar 2023-02-10 15:30:00 2023-02-10 17:00:00 Asian Futures: Anarchism | Anachronism Join the Asian Futures Initiative for a talk by Erin Collins titled "Anarchism | Anachronism: Toward a Critical Chronopolitics of Dispossession in Phnom Penh."  In this presentation, Erin will critique Cambodian state representations of Phnom Penh’s urban poor communities as anarchistic, arguing that they are rather anachronistic—out of sync with the ruling party’s politics of time. She draws on archival and oral historical research to analyze a recurrent feature of state land reforms over the past forty years, whereby the ruling party declares a break with the past and then invites the urban population to apply anew for recognition of their property claims—consolidating regime authority in the process. Next, drawing on oral historical interviews and analysis of resonant images from films and the built environment, Collins demonstrates how urban poor communities resist and even counter this mode of temporal closure, claiming a space in the city based on crowded, collective, and heterotemporal histories of dispossession. Erin Collins is Assistant Professor of Geography at Dartmouth College. Her research focuses on the political economy and cultural politics of transformation in Southeast Asian cities with a specific interest in questions of social justice. She is currently finishing up a book project, tentatively titled Chronopolis: Crowded Histories, Patrimonial Claims, and Temporal Closure in Phnom Penh, which analyzes the politics of time that undergird or foreclose claims to space and power in Cambodia’s capital city over the past forty years. She has recent publications in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, and International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. The talk will be hosted in Hagerty Hall 198 and is funded by the Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme for the Asian Futures Initiative and co-sponsored by the Humanities Institute.  This event is free and open to the public. For more information, email humanitiescollaboratory@osu.edu.  The Humanities Institute and its related centers host a wide range of events, from intense discussions of works in progress to cutting-edge presentations from world-known scholars, artists, and activists, and everything in between. In our current moment of riding the unpredictable currents of the pandemic, we reaffirm the value of in-person engagement. We strive to amplify the energy in the room. But we also recognize the need to be careful and the fact that not all our guests will be able to visit our space. We, therefore, will continue to offer Zoom access to all our events upon request. If you wish to have such access, please send your request to humanitiescollaboratory@osu.edu.  Hagerty Hall 198A Humanities Institute huminst@osu.edu America/New_York public

Join the Asian Futures Initiative for a talk by Erin Collins titled "Anarchism | Anachronism: Toward a Critical Chronopolitics of Dispossession in Phnom Penh." 

In this presentation, Erin will critique Cambodian state representations of Phnom Penh’s urban poor communities as anarchistic, arguing that they are rather anachronistic—out of sync with the ruling party’s politics of time. She draws on archival and oral historical research to analyze a recurrent feature of state land reforms over the past forty years, whereby the ruling party declares a break with the past and then invites the urban population to apply anew for recognition of their property claims—consolidating regime authority in the process. Next, drawing on oral historical interviews and analysis of resonant images from films and the built environment, Collins demonstrates how urban poor communities resist and even counter this mode of temporal closure, claiming a space in the city based on crowded, collective, and heterotemporal histories of dispossession.

Erin Collins is Assistant Professor of Geography at Dartmouth College. Her research focuses on the political economy and cultural politics of transformation in Southeast Asian cities with a specific interest in questions of social justice. She is currently finishing up a book project, tentatively titled Chronopolis: Crowded Histories, Patrimonial Claims, and Temporal Closure in Phnom Penh, which analyzes the politics of time that undergird or foreclose claims to space and power in Cambodia’s capital city over the past forty years. She has recent publications in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, and International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

The talk will be hosted in Hagerty Hall 198 and is funded by the Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme for the Asian Futures Initiative and co-sponsored by the Humanities Institute. 

This event is free and open to the public.

For more information, email humanitiescollaboratory@osu.edu

The Humanities Institute and its related centers host a wide range of events, from intense discussions of works in progress to cutting-edge presentations from world-known scholars, artists, and activists, and everything in between.

In our current moment of riding the unpredictable currents of the pandemic, we reaffirm the value of in-person engagement. We strive to amplify the energy in the room. But we also recognize the need to be careful and the fact that not all our guests will be able to visit our space. We, therefore, will continue to offer Zoom access to all our events upon request. If you wish to have such access, please send your request to humanitiescollaboratory@osu.edu

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