Billede af Cecilia Nathansen Milwertz

Cecilia Nathansen Milwertz

19972018

Publikationer pr. år

Personlig profil

Primære forskningsområder

Cecilia Milwertz works as senior researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. With communication studies scholar Professor Bu Wei from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences she is developing a research project on linkages and inseparabilities between workers in the PRC and consumers in urban China as well as in the Nordic countries. Together with philosopher/sociologist Wang Fengxian, the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences she has for many years been, and is still, doing research on non-governmental organizing in the PRC.

Her more than twenty years of research on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has included a study of the population control policy as viewed from the perspective of one-child mothers, work on the first bottom up women’s organizations in Beijing and on non-governmental gender and development organizing in three PRC provinces. She applies a hybrid and always inductive approach in her research projects based on a humanities and social sciences educational background in China studies and cultural sociology and a lot of borrowing and inspiration from anthropology, gender studies and other fields.

Cecilia Milwertz is editor of the Gendering Asia Book Series published by NIAS Press http://www.niaspress.dk/books/series/gendering-asia. She heads the Gendering Asia Network http://genderingasia.net/, and is coordinator of the Sino-Nordic Gender Studies Network.

Kort præsentation

Current research field: 

Research project: 'Manufacturing the World: the interconnectedness of Chinese workers and Danish consumers'.   

Many companies from the global North have moved their production to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), leading China to become ‘the factory of the world’ (Zhang 2006) based on the labour of 270 million Chinese workers. This means that China is present on the body and in the home of virtually every Dane in the form of products ‘Made in China’. For instance 40 percent of smartphones in Denmark are Apple iPhones produced in the PRC. At the same time there is worldwide concern today about the impact of the current culture of production and consumption on diminishing global resources and it is broadly acknowledged that there is an urgent need for change to sustainable practices (IPCC 2014). This research project is concerned with the paradox between, on the one hand, acknowledging how our current system creates inequality and threatens the possibility of a sustainable future on the planet and, on the other, our continuing perpetuation of this system. It explores this paradox at the micro-level, in the encounter between two groups of actors – factory workers in China and consumers in Denmark. The focus is on how workers and consumers are interconnected in maintaining the system and how they may either promote or obstruct what has been called ‘the great transition’ (Raskin et al. 2002) that is needed to achieve a sustainable and equitable global system. Based on qualitative studies in China and Denmark the project will engage in action research and communication activism involving a theatre performance and it will collaborate with the investigative journalism NGO Danwatch.

Kort præsentation

Research group:

 

The interconnections of Chinese workers – global consumers.

With Bu Wei (Institute of Journalism and Communication, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Liu Jun (Institute of media, Cogntion and Communicatuion, Uiversity of Copenhagen), Michala Hvidt Breengaard (Institute of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Bo Ærenlund Sørensen (Oxford University and Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen)

 

The Construction of Non-government Initiated Gender and Development Organizations in the People’s Republic of China

With Wang Fengxian (Institute of Sociology, Beijing Academy of Social Sciences)

 

Revisiting Gender: Reflections on the Research Process'

Led by Rebecca Elmhirst (Brighton University), Philippe Doneys (Asian Institute fo Technology) and Raghild Lund (NTNU Norwegian University of Technology)

 

Sino-Nordic Gender Studies Network

http://nias.ku.dk/fudan/sino-nordic-gender-studies-

 

Gendering Asia Network

http://genderingasia.net/

 

 

 

 

 

CV

VÆSENTLIGE ANSÆTTELSER

2001-                   Seniorforsker, Nordisk Institut for Asienstudier - NIAS

1999-2001           Forsker, Nordisk Institut for Asienstudier - NIAS

1996-1999           European Science Foundation Research Fellow, University of Oxford

1995-1996           Associeret Forsker, Nordisk Institut for Asienstudier - NIAS

1990-1994           Forsker, Center for Øst- og Sydøstasienstudier, Københavns Universitet

 

 

UDDANNELSE

1995                    PhD i Kinastudier, Asien-Instituttet, Københavns Universitet

1989-90              fem måneders diplomkursus, Danmarks Journalisthøjskole

1988                    Cand.mag i kultursociologi, Institut for Kultursociologi og Kinastudier, Asien      Instituttet, KU

1981-83              sprogstudier, Beijing Languages Institute, Beijing

Sprogkundskaber

Dansk - modersmål - indvandret til Danmark som 11-årig

Engelsk - næsten flydende

Kinesisk - middelmådigt, går dog an til forskningsbrug!

Fransk, spansk, tysk - mundtligt stort set forsvundet, kan dog læse i begrænset omfang

 

 

Aktuel forskning

Cecilia Milwertz is involved in two research projects:

 

Chinese Workers - Global Consumers

Dr Cecilia Milwertz, senior researcher, NIAS 
Professor Bu Wei, the Institute of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Production and consumption are the engine of today’s global economy. Many Nordic companies have now moved their production to the People’s Republic of China, where labour is cheap. However, both these companies and the Chinese state  are increasingly being held responsible for ensuring acceptable working conditions for the millions of peasant workers who have left rural China to work in urban factories. Similarly, Nordic states are being held responsible by consumers for ethical public procurement. This project therefore focuses on perceptions of the links between producers and consumers.

This project aims to understand relations between workers in the PRC and consumers in both the Nordic countries and China by viewing workers and consumers as related to each other through consumer products. It asks how consumers conceive of this relationship and their responsibility for the well-being of workers in the PRC. Do they leave responsibility to states and companies or do they see themselves as individuals and groups that have a role to play?

The main questions we ask include: What awareness exists among consumers in the Nordic countries and China of how their lives are linked to those of Chinese factory workers? How are perceptions of the links between producers and consumers related to dominant global consumption discourses or to the alternatives that are being promoted to ensure global survival? Ultimately, the research asks how perceptions may shape consumer behaviour in ways that either promote or obstruct social change and a reduction in exploitative relations?

This project will enhance understanding of individual and collective consumer behaviour and this is of relevance for Nordic policy and practice. However, the overarching aim is to contribute to ongoing debate about our shared responsibility for environmental sustainability and social equality.  

Participants: Research groups are being established in Denmark and China, while the intention is to expand the project to include research groups in all five Nordic countries.

Funding: In 2015 applications for research funding will be submitted to the Danish Research Council and to the EU.

 

Creating Non-government Initiated Organizing in the People’s Republic of China – a study of three gender and development organizations

Cecilia Milwertz, senior researcher, NIAS 
Wang Fengxian, Institute of Sociology, Beijing Academy of Social Sciences

This is a study of the living and changing phenomenon of organizing from below to address gender and development issues in the People’s Republic of China during the approximately ten-year period from the mid-1990s to 2006. We are concerned with relations between the social entrepreneurs, foreign development aid organizations and domestic party-state institutions involved in initiating and developing NGOs. Our main questions are:  How have knowledge and practices relating to both form and content of organizing to address social issues been created through processes of intra-action between social entrepreneurs and people from foreign donor organizations and domestic party-state institutions? How have knowledge and practices that have developed within the framework of the People’s Republic of China met up with knowledge and practices from Western development aid organizations.

This project is part of the larger Norwegian-Asian project Re-visiting Gender in Development: Complex Inequalities in a Changing Asia.

Project coordinator: Professor Ragnhild Lund, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s Department of Geography/NTNU Social Research.

Funding: The Research Council of Norway
Timeframe: 2011-2014 (funded), 2015 (non-funded)

Ekspertise relateret til FN’s Verdensmål

I 2015 blev FN-landende enige om 17 Verdensmål til at standse fattigdom, beskytte planeten og sikre velstand for alle. Denne persons arbejde bidrager til følgende verdensmål:

  • Verdensmål 1 - Afskaf fattigdom
  • Verdensmål 12 - Ansvarligt forbrug og produktion
  • Verdensmål 13 - Klimaindsats

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