by Juliette Schwak (PhiSoc, ULB)

In this talk, I will present an ongoing ERC project focusing on post-growth nostalgia in contemporary East Asian societies. East Asian societies have experienced accelerated modernisation, but citizens in late-industrialised economies today reject hypercompetitive and unequal societies. In parallel, nostalgia has emerged as a major trend in consumer practices and cultural productions in the region. It is mostly contemplated as a cultural phenomenon. But when nostalgia expresses longing towards a pre-developmental past, it also belongs to the field of discontent with economic development and can shape citizens’ political economic mobilisation. I therefore explore whether East Asians long for their pre-developmental past, and if they mobilise for political economic change on this nostalgic basis?  Does frustration with capitalist modernity lead East Asians to seek alternative futures beyond development and the quest for economic growth? The talk will focus on the project cases: Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia.

Tuesday 14th April 2026, from 2pm until 4pm

Room S.H32244
Building H3
ULB - Campus Solbosch

Free entrance