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Event Detail

Regional Seminar "New Voices from the Mekong Region: Women in the Public Arena"

Dates: November 07, 2005 to November 10, 2005

Venue Information

Event Details

Residents of the Mekong region are facing rapid socio-economic changes, with particularly significant impacts on local women, who have historically lacked a voice in the public arena. Increased contact between the countries of the Mekong region is occurring in the form of legal and illegal cross-border trade, migration, human trafficking, increased access to media and information, and large-scale development projects that threaten to permanently alter the environment and livelihoods of local communities. The ability of women to mitigate the potentially negative impacts of these changes and to take an active part in determining the shared future of the region will depend largely on their access to the public arena. It is with this rational that the Women’s Studies Center is organizing this regional seminar on women in the Mekong region.

The seminar will focus on graduate and undergraduate students from the region as well as recent graduates, providing them with a forum to speak on the issues that their generation faces in this period of unprecedented social change, and to develop a regional perspective for what they are witnessing at the local level. The conference will provide students with the opportunity to hone their research, analytical, and presentation skills, and to network and share ideas with young scholars from neighboring countries, with the goal of empowering a new generation of women prepared to meet the challenges facing their region.

Applicants are invited to submit papers on a wide range of topics relating to women and public policy, including but not limited to human rights, law, health, education, environment, economics, media, religion, violence against women, and human trafficking. The papers presented will be published in book form following the seminar.

Scholarships covering the cost of travel and accommodations will be awarded to successful applicants from Vietnam, Thailand, and the Lao PDR. Applicants are invited to submit an application form and a 500-word abstract by September 5, 2005, and notifications of acceptance and scholarship awards will be announced by September 26, 2005. The deadline for complete papers is October 28, 2005.

For additional details and updates, please visit our website at www.soc.cmu.ac.th/~wsc, or con