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As an Abe Fellow in 2008-2009, Reimann conducted field research in Japan and Southeast Asia related to regional environmental governance and NGOs in Southeast Asia.  This research project analyzes the multiple and various roles that NGOs now play in the region as advocates, critics, partners, agenda-setters, consensus-builders and major players in the area of the environment. Her talk at CSEAS will present her3 case studies (NGOs and the Asian Development Bank, the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas Marine Eco-Region, the Mekong Biodiversity Conservation Corridor Initiative) and some of her initial findings in the field. Kim DoHyang Reimann is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Georgia State University (GSU) and she is also currently the Director of the Asian Studies Center at GSU.  Her publications include her recent book The Rise of Japanese NGOs, Activism from Above (Routledge 2009) as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles.  Her research examines NGOs/the nonprofit sector, global activism, transnational social movements, and environmental governance, with a particular regional focus on Japan and greater East Asia.(http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwpol/2768.html)

The official advertisement celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China credits Hong Kong's success to its status as the premier world city of Asia ("Asia's World City") and to its economic position as "the prime gateway to China". But what is also proclaimed in denegation (Verneinung) is a pervasive worry about Hong Kong's ability to remain competitive as a mediating zone between global capital and the mainland in the face of the rise of other Asian global cities such as Shanghai and Singapore. At the same time, global flows have also generated needs, fantasies and desires that have exacerbated preexisting divisions and inequalities and also led to deep structural changes in Hong Kong society. This paper argues that Fruit Chan's Hollywood, Hong Kong offers a satirical mapping and dark critique of Hong Kong's position as a global city within the contemporary capitalist world system.