Welcome Remarks by Maureen Sabine, President of the HKAH, at the opening of "The Included-Outs"
November 11, 2019
Below are the welcome remarks by Maureen Sabine, President of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities, at the opening of “The Included-Outs: An International Symposium of the Justice, Arts and Migration Network”, held at Hong Kong Baptist University, 7-8 November 2019.
Maureen Sabine, President of the Hong Kong Academy of the HUmanities:
I am very pleased that the Academy was asked to support the International Symposium which John Erni, Fung Hon Chu Endowed Chair of Humanics, recently convened at Hong Kong Baptist University in partnership with the University of Lincoln. Organized by the Department of Humanities and Creative Writing which John heads, this symposium brought together cultural researchers, art practitioners and social thinkers from across the globe to examine the precarious and poignant position of migrants who are The Included-outs. As this year’s HKAH President, I was invited to join Hong Kong Baptist University Provost, Clayton G. MacKenzie who is a new fellow to our Academy, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Mette Hjort who was a founding fellow, in making the following welcome remarks.
Like the Justice, Arts and Migration (JAM) Network formed through collaboration between Hong Kong Baptist University and the University of Lincoln, our Academy is a body which recognizes that research in arts and humanities has no borders. It is comprised of honorary fellows working across disciplines and institutions of higher education in Hong Kong. We aim to foster greater communication, cooperation and solidarity among humanities scholars; augment public appreciation of the value and reach of the humanities; and address matter of importance and concern to the humanities in Hong Kong.
John took a crucial leadership step in advancing these goals when he recommended that we expand our membership to include creative practitioners and cultural leaders known beyond academia. In exploring the role that the creative arts can play not only in bringing the plight of the migrant to public attention but enhancing the migrant sense of identity, purpose and agency, the JAM Network and this symposium on The Included-outs are modelling new approaches to articulating and advocating the value of the humanities.
The Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities has recently adopted the motto promoting the humanities, defending our humanity. We honor the work you are carrying out over the next two days to explore how migrants preserve our sense of humanity through the diverse cultural practices and forms of expression they carry with them, often at great cost, across borders. As I say this, I am thinking of the words of Kurdish refuge poet, Behrouz Boochani who was held in Australia’s infamous Manus Island detention center without charge for five years, and the brave translators who smuggled his narrative, No Friend but the Mountains, across detention walls to publication. Boochani resisted dehumanization as an asylum-seeker by asserting what the Australian writer Richard Flanagan called his “belief in words: their beauty, their necessity, their possibility, their liberating power.” In politics across the globe, words have been used to erect barriers, foment bitter binary divisions, dehumanize others, and erode respect for difference and diversity. Let us use words in the poetic spirit of Boochani to understand rather than simply denigrate and dismiss others, to recreate and not destroy the worlds we inhabit and love.
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More information about the JAM network can be found on their website (click here).