ICAS8 MACAU: The largest conference ever on Asian Studies

88 days to go to the most significant and largest conference on Asian Studies ever. More than 1,500 academics from over 50 countries are participating in the 8th International Convention of Asia Scholars – Macau (ICAS 8), a premier international gathering of Asian studies in the humanities and social sciences launched in 1998 under the auspices of Leiden’s International Institute for Asian Studies.
ICAS8 “strongly demonstrates the growing importance of Macau in international research and the enhancement of the SAR’s position in hosting international events,” said Professor Ngo Tak-wing, the local co-ordinator, in an exclusive interview with the Times.
ICAS is co-organized with local partners, University of Macau and the Macao Foundation, and will take place on June 24-27 at the Venetian Resort Hotel in Cotai. The 4-day conference will run at a pace of 25 panels at any given time.
Although mostly a “scholarly affair”, ICAS8 “wants to connect with the city and the people”, and that is why several public-oriented initiatives are being held simultaneously – a doc-film festival on Asia, a bookfair, an exhibition and a music concert.
During the interview, Prof. Ngo spoke enthusiastically about the event and its importance to Macau and to Asian Studies. Budgeted at 6 million patacas, much of it is being covered by the organizers and registration fees, but Prof. Ngo stressed that an event of this magnitude “with tremendous internal and external impact for Macau, namely in respect to the diversification of the economy, needs the support of many.”

MDT – Professor Ngo, this is a huge event that you are organizing. Now that you have the whole program and panels defined, can you tell us – in a few punch lines – what ICAS8 is?
Professor Ngo Tak-wing – ICAS8 is a gathering of international scholars coming together to exchange research findings and to discuss scholarly concerns, all-things connected to Asia: the development of Asia, the history of Asia, the culture and heritage of Asia. And we have right now, after a careful selection, 350 organized panels over a 4-day meeting to discuss all the major issues concerning the topics in Asia that are of utmost interest to scholars internationally.

MDT – What was the approximate ratio of submissions to approvals for papers?
NTW – Roughly I think we had over 2,000 submissions and from that we selected 1,300 papers. It was a pretty heavy selection.

MDT – So, would you say that this will be the largest ever convention in Asian Studies?
NTW – Yes, indeed. The convention takes place every two years in a different place and we are very fortunate to host this conference here. So for Macau also this is the largest academic conference ever and also the most important.

MDT – And we are having here le crème de la crème of Asian Studies worldwide…
NTW – We are having the crème de la crème. We are having representatives from over 56 countries, over 600 institutes of higher education, with representatives from the top global universities. So these are the most renowned frontier researchers from all over the world coming to Macau.

MDT – How did your fellow scholars in Macau responded to this initiative?
NTW – Macau’s colleagues responded very enthusiastically to the conference and in the end I think we’ll have around 80 Macau scholars taking part in this event. So in terms of Macau scholars it is also one of the biggest gatherings ever, if not the biggest, coming together to discuss serious academic research.

MDT – And the other universities (in Macau), are they involved? What about other institutions?
NTW – Yes. Besides the University of Macau, other institutions are also involved, including University of Saint Joseph (USJ), Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), Macau Institute of European Studies (IEEM) and we have a lot of institutions involved by either sponsoring some events or by taking part in the panel discussions. So actually this is a major event for Macau.

(The participants) are senior scholars, some of them university managers… To give them first hand information about Macau, and to let them disseminate [it] to the rest of world is one reason for having ICAS8 here

MDT – The Macao Foundation is co-organizing the event. What about other government departments working more closely with academic research, what has been their response so far? Are they aware of the importance of this convention?
NTW – We have visited the most relevant government departments such as the Higher Education Bureau (GAES), Economic Department, the Culture Affairs Bureau (IC), Tourist Office (MGTO) and they are responding positively to the event but of course we hope to get more involvement from the public sector, as much as possible.

MDT – In your opinion do you think these government executives are seeing the real importance of this event to the MSAR?
NTW – So far we have received positive feedback from them but we are looking forward to seeing more support. For the event to be successful we also need material support, administrative support and we are confident that this kind of support will appear in the forthcoming months.

MDT – In the ICAS8 panels and individual papers Macau studies is one of the topics and also the casino industry is going to be analyzed by scholars. Can you briefly describe what these will be?
NTW – We have around 20 panels focused on Macau itself, involving not only local scholars but scholars from all over the world, discussing topics such as History, Culture Heritage, Macanese Societies, Macau’s connections to the outside world and so forth. We’ll designate a particular “Macau Room” to host the related panels so that when the public and participants want to attend a session about Macau they can always come and return to this same room.
We also have a panel about casino development in Asia. This will be a comparative study on the development of gaming industry in various places, taking Macau as a core starting point but also looking at how casino development is going in Singapore, in Laos, in Vietnam and in other Asian countries and making a comparison to see if Macau really has an edge (in the region); and also (to discuss) whether the gaming industry constitutes a new strategy for economic development in less-developed countries
MDT – We are about 3 months ahead of the event, but from the contacts you have been having with thousands of scholars worldwide and the comments you have been getting from them what do you think could be the impact of ICAS8 in the academic world for Macau?
NTW – From my contacts with those participants who are planning to come to Macau, I think they come for two reasons: of course they’re coming to attend the conference, some of them are regular ICAS attendants, but a large number of them come because they want to see Macau. For them Macau is a very interesting place, they would very much like to visit the place. And I think this is very important for Macau to show to the outside world that this is not only a place full of casinos, but is also a place of extensive cultural heritage, a place full of historically dense legacies, and it is an economically vibrant place; it is also a showcase of the greater China region to the world outside. So I think the event itself helps to bring Macau to the international community and at the same time also serves to bring international knowledge to Macau. So (ICAS8) conjures the tradition of Macau to serve as a bridge between China and the world. I think this conference squarely fits into that tradition: to bring outside cutting-edge knowledge to Macau and to send the multifaceted aspects of Macau to the outside world.

Ngo  Tak-wing is a professor of political science at the University of Macau and holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

MDT – These scholars usually have quite a network – colleagues and students – inside and outside the academy. For how many of them will this be the first visit to Macau?
NTW – I haven’t an exact figure, but from the 1,300-1,500 participants, I suspect that probably 80 percent of them will be first-timers. Most of them have heard about this place but have never visited in person. They look forward to coming and experiencing Macau very much. It is very important, because knowing Macau from the books, from the newspapers, is quite different from knowing from personal experience. And these are people who occupy major positions in universities, they are senior scholars, some of them are senior university managers… And to give them first hand information about Macau, and to let them disseminate that information to the rest of world is one very important reason for having ICAS8 here in Macau.

MDT – How much are we talking about in terms of budget for an organization such as the ICAS?
NTW – The entire budget is over 6 million patacas. A lot of it will be coming from registration fees but there are some contributions from UM, Macao Foundation and also from the secretariat of ICAS itself. But aside from that we also need a lot of local sponsorship because we are talking about a huge event. This is not just about the panels and conference itself, because in addition to that we have a number of related activities such as an international book exhibition; an international documentary film festival and an exhibition on the relation between the Ottoman Empire and Asia; and a concert performance, and all this involves quite a lot of money, so we still need a great deal of sponsorship support.

Topics and participants

The topics in ICAS 8 cover different subjects and areas, including humanities, social science, law, education, and management. Since 1998, ICAS has taken place in different parts of the world, including Leiden, Berlin, Singapore, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Daejeon, and Honolulu.
Most of the 1,500 participants are top scholars from the world’s most renowned universities and research institutes, including ANU, Berkeley, Cambridge, Chicago, Chulalongkorn, Coimbra, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Heidelberg, Keio, Kyoto, Leiden, Leuven, Michigan, NUS, Peking, Princeton, Seoul, Sorbonne, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, Tsinghua, SOAS, Stanford, Uppsala, Waseda, Yale, and UBC.
While the largest proportion of participants will come from Asia (60%), Europe (18%), United States (13%), and Australia (7%), scholars from as far as Egypt, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Mauritius, Israel, Brazil, and many others will also join the event.
During the four-day conference, there will be around 350 thematic panels and roundtable discussions, during which senior scholars will present their up-to-date research. The topics include culture and heritage, globalization and transnationalism, immigration and connectivity, social and economic transition, urban development and regionalism. “All of these topics are most relevant to the Asian region as well as to Greater China. The expert-led dialogues will play a significant role in the future development of Asia,” stated Prof. Ngo.
Tens of the panel sessions will focus on the development of Macau. More than 80 scholars from institutions of higher education and community organizations in Macau will take part in the conference.

ICAS8 MACAU: The largest conference ever on Asian Studies