The Jean Monnet Centre for Excellence in Critical Infrastructure Studies at the University of British Columbia (UBCCECIS) brings together faculty, graduate students, and regional experts who share an interest in using Critical Infrastructure Studies to address East/West binaries that persist in political, social, and cultural thought. These binaries have historically been the foundation upon which simplistic distinctions were drawn between large geopolitical areas in ways that have suppressed the expression of possible solidarities or collaborations that might move researchers, diplomats/ international relations experts, and public intellectuals dictating discourse into a less divided future. UBCCECIS is working to develop interdisciplinary methodologies in the realm of humanities, social sciences, and applied sciences that make transnational, global infrastructure studies available as a field of study through which to examine intercultural tensions resulting from and relating to the East/West binary with the aim of mitigating them. UBC has long been a site for excellence in European and Asian Studies. UBCCECIS draws on this stature and create points of contact between heretofore disparate areas of study and scholars at UBC. The aim is to establish UBC as a main venue for global Critical Infrastructure Studies with a focus on the EU and its relations to East European and Asian cultural, economic, and political discourses and practices.
The Jean Monnet Center for Excellence in Critical Infrastructure Studies at UBC is supported by funding from the Faculty of Arts and the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union through the Jean Monnet Actions in the field of Higher Education: Centers of Excellence program.
