With support from the Global Innovation Fund, Dr. Faisal Hossain, UW Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, used satellite imagery and data to help Pakistani farmers make informed decisions about irrigation. Later, using a similar approach, Hossain informed multi-country decisions about water use in the Mekong River with the goal of protecting the river’s freshwater fisheries. Today, Hossain is working with graduate students and tribal communities along the Columbia River to help restore tribal fishing stocks by harnessing satellite data to determine river temperatures.
In 2021, Andrea Gevurtz Arai, Acting Assistant Professor, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, and Jeff Hou, Professor, College of Built Environments, were awarded a Research Award through the Global Innovation Fund by the Office of Global Affairs. The Global Innovation Fund supports transformative cross-college, cross-continent global research, teaching, and learning experiences at the University of Washington.
Cover image for Spaces of Creative Resistance: Social Change Projects in Twenty-First Century East Asia
With additional funding support from the East Asia Center, UW Japan Studies Program, Department of Landscape Architecture, UW College of Built Environments, UW China Studies Program, UW Center for Korea Studies, UW Taiwan Studies Program, and UW Center for Global Studies, Andrea Gevurtz Arai and Jeff Hou hosted a virtual conference in 2022 to bring together a cross-regional, interdisciplinary group of scholars, scholar activists, and artists from across East Asia focused on different forms of “creative resistance” to the last two decades of social disconnection, wealth inequality and new burdens placed on reproductive labor and the environment. This project was the first of its kind at the UW, a collaboration between a cultural anthropologist of Japan (and East Asia) and a Taiwanese landscape architect, and gathered an interdisciplinary group of scholars, scholar activists, and individuals involved in different forms of social change.
Following the conference, Andrea Gevurtz Arai edited the papers and compiled them into chapters, including two additional papers from two of her graduate students, to create a volume that will be published this month by Rutgers University Press, Spaces of Creative Resistance: Social Change Projects in Twenty-First Century East Asia. Andrea Gevurtz Arai wrote the introduction and also contributed a chapter. Each chapter demonstrates how individuals and communities across East Asia are making their stands in the everyday, making more liveable presents and more possible futures. A teaching appendix is available at the end to support educators across the U.S. and East Asia in bringing this volume into their classrooms.
The Conference
The conference was originally supposed to take place in person in 2021, but given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it ultimately took place virtually in 2022. Jeff Hou and Andrea Gevurtz Arai invited a range of voices from across East Asia – from scholars, scholar activists, and artists – to present papers on the true politics of the everyday. Some of the participants were young people writing about other young people, while others were scholars writing about what young people are doing to challenge the status quo.
It’s an interesting collection of stories of change that we don’t usually hear from the bottom up, from the grassroots, about what’s happening in East Asia.
Andrea Gevurtz AraiActing Assistant Professor
Andrea Gevurtz Arai also invited her students to participate in the conference, which resulted in two of them writing papers that would be included in the volume and one of them collaborating with Andrea Gevurtz Arai on the teaching appendix. Students in her classes who have read the papers are particularly interested in learning from their peers in East Asia about how to build a society in which you want to live in.
The Volume
The volume is divided into three sections – Creative Acts of Resistance, Cultural Spaces and Community Places, and Environments of Creative Resistance – and draws from the experiences of scholars, scholar activists, and artists in China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. From young people in Korea who are creating and living in village communities to foster a sense of belonging, to an organization in Japan committed to preserving a historic local cinema, to a social enterprise dedicated to revitalizing community and gathering spaces in Taiwan, the volume captures the breadth and depth of how youth are engaging in social action and creative space-making in East Asia.
This volume is about people’s lives right now, the history of those lives, the politics of those lives, and how social change movements materialize in the everyday.
Andrea Gevurtz AraiActing Assistant Professor
This volume presents a new and updated picture of East Asian societies. In the midst of a world in turmoil, facing a range of environmental, economic and social problems, young people are coming together to create something new, something of their own, sharing across national-cultural borders, learning from each other, revaluing their labor and their built and natural environments, in and from the center and peripheries.
To learn more about the impact of this volume, join Andrea Gevurtz Arai this summer at an event at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle or attend her talk at the East Asia Center at the UW in October.
The Office of Global Affairs has awarded $363,300 to 40 outstanding projects, sparking transformative global collaborations and advancing interdisciplinarity across the UW.
The Global Innovation Fund (GIF) seeds initiatives and programs developing cross-college and cross-continent collaborations that enhance the University of Washington’s global reach. Global Innovation Fund awards provide initial funding for faculty research proposals, leading-edge global Husky learning experiences, and collaborations aligned with the University of Washington’s strategic initiatives and regional priorities.
This spring, Brittany Kamai, visiting professor in the Department of Astronomy in the UW College of Arts & Sciences, taught an innovative course about the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific and how they used the stars, winds, and waves to navigate across the Pacific Ocean.
Brittany Kamai
The course, Pacific Indigenous Astrophysics, was offered by the University of Washington’s Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies (CAIIS) and funded by the Office of Global Affairs through the Global Innovation Fund, which provides seed funding for international faculty research and teaching spanning multiple disciplines, leading edge student experiences, and collaborations with global partners.
Kamai designed the course to be accessible to all UW students. No astronomy or physics background was required. For Kamai, it was an opportunity to share the wisdom of her ancestors and about modern day concepts of astrophysics to deepen students’ understanding about the cosmos. Students learned about the roles of voyagers within the Hawaiian Renaissance and how critical it has been to bring back deep-sea sailing canoes and Indigenous practices of navigating in traditional ways without external instruments.
For students who have chosen this field, my message is to be friends with the sky. Start to see and honor different cultural stories that go along with it.
The Office of Global Affairs is excited to be participating in Husky Giving Day, a 24-hour period during which alumni and friends come together to support the people, programs, projects and causes they care about most at the University of Washington. Husky Giving Day is the largest single-day of philanthropic giving of the year, lasting from 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on April 6, 2023.
The Office of Global Affairs will be raising funds to support:
The deadline for all three awards is November 1, 2022.
The Office of Global Affairs (OGA) is now accepting applications for the Fall 2022 Global Innovation Fund (GIF) cycle. GIF seeds projects focused on expanding international research and learning at the UW, advancing interdisciplinarity and transformative global collaborations.
OGA is especially interested in supporting proposals by new entrants and early-career faculty.
There are three categories of awards for this cycle:
Research Awards
UW faculty members, research scientists, and non-faculty researchers from the Seattle, Tacoma, and Bothell campuses are encouraged to apply for a Tier 1 Research Award (up to $5,000) or a Tier 2 Research Award (up to $20,000).
Research projects may include:
Research collaborations with international universities and/or organizations
Cross-college and interdisciplinary conferences, symposia, and workshops
UW faculty members, lecturers, and staff engaged in course development are eligible to apply for awards up to $2,000 to add a global module, project, or innovation to a course.
OGA is pleased to offer this award for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
GIF Study Abroad/Away award request types include:
Pre-program visit, international (up to $5,000)
Pre-program visit, domestic (up to $3,000)
Embed a global component to a spring or winter class (three years: up to $10,000/year)
Create a new domestic study away program (three years: up to $10,000/year)
Fund an additional faculty member to attend an existing program to share responsibility of maintaining the program in the future (domestic: up to $3,000, international: up to $5,000)
Awarded programs must be run through UW Study Abroad.
The University of Washington and the Aga Khan University have partnered substantially over the past years to advance global population health and link their institutions. Through these collaborations, students, faculty, and researchers have benefited from the shared expertise and exchange in a range of areas and disciplines.
Read more about the history and impact of this partnership and the Office of Global Affairs and Global Innovation Fund’s involvement below:
“There were a lot of synergies between our two institutions not just in terms of our social justice missions, but around the values of what this partnership holds,” Farzana Karim-Haji, director of the Aga Khan University Partnerships Office, said. “The Population Health Initiative at UW draws parallels to AKDN’s Quality of Life Initiative, where both are focused on a holistic view of improving the overall human condition from a variety of aspects in health, education, poverty alleviation, climate change, etc.”
Unexpected tools are enriching the UW online learning experience and helping students connect with complex issues like human rights. UW professors are finding creative ways to build community and share knowledge.
Paulina Andrews ’20
Paulina Andrews ‘20 is aiming for a career advocating for persons with disabilities. Paulina jumps at every opportunity to deepen her understanding of human rights issues, including a UW Study Abroad program to Jamaica organized by Professor Stephen Meyers and Megan McCloskey, where she spent time in a deaf village and with local grassroots organizations, and internships at civil rights organizations.
Last spring, Paulina was in her final quarter at the UW and excited to begin a course called Genocide and the Law with Professor Rawan Arar. Like students all over the country, Paulina was forced by the pandemic to complete her coursework from home, via Zoom. “Professor Arar was upbeat and brought a lot of energy to the class,” Paulina remembers, “but she was also real about what we were all going through. That helped me a lot.”
Determined to keep her courses meaningful, Professor Arar re-envisioned the syllabi. She offered one pre-recorded lecture for students to engage with at their convenience. The other meeting became a live discussion section so students would have more opportunity for connection and to ask questions. “I live alone,” shares Paulina, “so class time was one of my only chances to talk to other people.”
Professor Arar asked students to share artwork and written reflections on the course materials. Some curated Spotify playlists with songs relating to class topics. They engaged in visual storytelling using Flipgrid. Paulina loved the variety presented by the new class structure. Of course, there was still a lot of reading. “But there were also movies to watch and podcasts to listen to. It was a break from the usual.”
“It’s hard to express certain things through words,” says Paulina. Creating art provided a new avenue for exploring the challenging topic of genocide. “Drawing was a refreshing way to interact with the material. It was a good way of dealing with a heavy topic and what we were all going through.”
Paulina’s drawing, inspired by a woman who survived genocide in Cambodia, explores the theme of silence. “She was so mad inside but never said anything. If you cover up the left side of my drawing it looks peaceful. But when you look at the whole you see her real thoughts.”
With a teaching and curriculum award from the UW Global Innovation Fund, Professor Arar has brought even more hands-on learning to her fall quarter courses.
Professor Arar
While studying occurrences of genocide around the world, the class will focus on knowledge production and the role of genocide museums as institutions that are established to reclaim contested stories and preserve a people’s history. Informed by class readings, students will develop an interview protocol and engage with survivors and the ancestors of survivors.
“With Global Innovation Fund support, I’m now able to add this engaging and experiential museum project to my online course,” shares Professor Arar. She’s also delighted to be sending some hands on materials to students via mail to create a more personal connection. “Being on Zoom for 5+ hours is really hard. I want to make a personal connection and give them something to hold on to.”
When a vaccine is available, there will be massive immunization campaigns around the world to make sure that everyone is protected. Planning must begin now to ensure that proper logistical systems are in place to support this monumental effort.
For low-income countries, a significant concern is the capacity and quality of the vaccine “cold chain”. Cold storage must be available to keep vaccines safe until administered. National assessments of the vaccine cold chain are needed as well as information systems that allow real-time reporting of vaccine stocks during the campaign.
Richard Anderson and Waylon Brunette from the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering have built an app for that – and much more. Their work strengthens IT systems run by governments and the World Health Organization to support vaccine campaign logistics. Already up and running in Uganda, the tools will soon launch in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
This summer, 10 UW students will participate in a new Exploration Seminar course in Nepal. Organized by the Nepal Studies Initiative (NSI), the seminar is one of the few formal programs in the U.S. focused on Nepal.
information systems that allow real-time reporting of vaccine stocks during the campaign.