The Faculty of Social Sciences, the China Economic Research Programme and the Pan Sutong Shanghai-Hong Kong Economic Policy Research Centre of Lingnan University jointly organised the two-day international conference “Protecting the Weak – Concepts and East Asian Evidence” with the Interdisciplinary Centre for East Asian Studies of Goethe University in Germany from 7 to 8 October.
Processes of protecting weak groups or interests have become an important aspect of East Asia political, economic, social and cultural life. The conference, held at the campus of Lingnan University, explored a wide range of issues and policies that are related to the status of the "weak" and how their protection is institutionalised. Distinguished scholars from Lingnan, other local institutions and various world regions were brought together to the conference to share their research findings, to promote international cooperation on these common research interests and to present their visions towards a better future of our global village. A total of eight thematic sessions were held for the two-day conference, namely (1) The Role of Ideas in ‘Protecting the Weak’, (2) ‘Gender and Sexuality in Discourses of ‘Protection’, (3) ‘The Role of Classifications’, (4) ‘Processes of Institutional Changes’, (5) ‘Labour Markets and Social Policy’, (6) ‘Education in Protecting the Weak or Intensifying Social Inequality’, (7) ‘Competition Policy’ and (8) ‘Income Inequality’.
The first day of the conference, themed on “Ideas, Discourses and Institutional Change”, started with a welcome address by Prof. Joshua Ka Ho MOK, Vice-President of Lingnan University. In his welcome message, Prof. Joshua Ka Ho MOK embraced the opportunity to co-host the international conference with Goethe University and he truly believed that international co-operation and conversation across different boarders would help solving the global challenges raised by the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Immediately following the welcome address were the opening speeches made by Prof. Iwo AMELUNG and Prof. Heike HOLBIG from Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main. Being two of the principal investigators of the interdisciplinary project, “Protecting the Weak”, they strongly believed the interdisciplinary approach could help combining theories and empirical evidences from different fields to form new ideas to combat with the complexities of the issues involved in protecting the weak.
The keynote speech by Prof. Mark ROSENZWEIG from Yale University marked the opening of the second day of the conference themed on “Policies of Protecting the Weak”. He gave a talk on the topic “Networks, Inequality and Development” and used the caste system in India as a case study to explore important issues on welfare development including spatial mobility, provision of public goods and redistribution of income to the poor.
During the two-day conference, a series of invited papers surrounding the eight thematic sessions were presented and discussed. The conference was finally ended by a remark made by Prof. WEI Xiangdong, Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences of Lingnan University. He concluded that the international conference enhanced the development of interdisciplinary research within the participated universities and he expressed appreciation to the contributors who helped making the international conference possible.
One momentous outcome of the conference was a shared enthusiasm among the scholars from different academic disciplines to be engaged in a joint discussion of how the purpose of “protecting the weak” and the visions towards a better future of our global village can be achieved. The joint discussion helped convening group of interdisciplinary researchers across various nations, assembling research ideas of their expertise and articulating how this expertise can be applied towards new solutions to existing problems.