CAPSTRANS

The ARC Key Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies

Director: Professor Ken Young (University of Wollongong)
Tel: + 61 2 4221 3780
Fax: + 61 2 4228 6313
Email: capstrans@uow.edu.au
Website: www.capstrans.edu.au

The Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS) is an Australian Research Council Key Centre of Teaching and Research and a joint venture of the University of Wollongong and the University of Newcastle which carries out research, teaching and provides policy advice. CAPSTRANS aims to provide global, regional and transnational understandings of the transformations of the Asia-Pacific. CAPSTRANS is producing innovative theoretical and empirical insights by combining understandings from political economy with research into ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic and visual signification. The Centre builds on long-standing research and teaching expertise from the two universities and boasts a strong post-graduate program in both institutions.

CAPSTRANS concentrates on four major research themes in order to identify the roles played by the state in the processes of social transformation. These themes are:

• Mobility, especially the capacity of states to control, manage and regulate diverse processes of geographical and social movement.
  
• Work and the way its rapid transformation is managed and directed by the state in relation to the complex social forces involved.
  
• Technology, social change and forms of knowledge and their harnessing by states for development objectives.
  
• Democratisation and citizenship with particular reference to processes of reform, rights, the nature of political hegemony and the tensions between global and local forces.

CAPSTRANS provides analysis and policy advice to government agencies, Non-Government Organisations and businesses throughout in the region. It also aims to inform public debates on crucial issues through seminars, publications and information for the media. An important feature of all the Centre's work is the on-going development of postgraduate teaching programs and specially tailored professional training courses designed for government agencies and service providers in the region. CAPSTRANS helps to enhance Australia's role as an international centre for Asia-Pacific studies, and our students are a vital part of the process.

CAPSTRANS works closely with scholars, policy-makers and non-governmental organisations in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. It plays an important role in research networks linked to international organisations such as the The World Bank, UNESCO, APEC, PECC, ASEAN, The International Organisation for Migration, the Asian Development Bank and to universities throughout the region. CAPSTRANS is the regional base for the UNESCO-MOST Asia Pacific Migration Research Network (APMRN), which works with partners in 12 countries. CAPSTRANS students draw on the benefits and support of these networks, especially through access to direct practical as well as theoretical experience.