Saving the world one family at a time: screening and discussion of Gone South Village
Speakers
Chair
With growing tensions between China and the United States, new "third spaces" are emerging beyond great-power competition. Gone South Village is a short documentary film that explores how overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia create social and global orders that are neither wholly Chinese nor Thai.
The film follows a Sino-Thai family as they travel from Bangkok to "Gone South Village", their late father's ancestral hometown in rural China. Through this journey, the documentary reflects on what it means to be "Chinese" in Thailand and "Thai" in China, and how transnational community ties are built through shared heritage. Rather than relying on elite or heroic solutions, the film offers an intimate account of how global interconnections are sustained one family at a time.
Meet your speakers and chair
Professor William A. Callahan is a Professor of Political Science at Singapore Management University and formerly Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research explores the intersection of theory, culture, and politics in China and Asia, with a focus on visual global politics. His books include Sensible Politics: Visualizing International Relations (2020), which won the ISA International Political Sociology Best Book Award.
Dr Mia Chen Ma works across Chinese literary and cultural studies, environmental humanities, medical humanities, and digital culture. She received her PhD in Chinese and Inner Asian Studies from SOAS, University of London, and recently completed a Wellcome Trust–funded Medical Humanities China–UK Early Career Fellowship at the University of Strathclyde. Her research examines how Chinese-language literature, media, and everyday cultural practices reshape debates on ecology, technology, care, and wellbeing, generating new ways of thinking about ecological anxiety, healing, and community-based world-making.
Dr Charlotte Goodburn is Deputy Director of the Lau China Institute and Reader in Chinese Politics and Development at King’s College London. Her research focuses on migration, labour, and development in contemporary China. She previously held a postdoctoral position in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, where she also completed her PhD.
Kieran Hanson is an award winning director and editor at Kenawa Films in Manchester. His speciality is in ethnographic documentary and much of his work involves collaborations with researchers, artists and arts and heritage institutions. He has worked in the UK, West Africa and China and is currently Lecturer in Film Practice at The University of Manchester.
Dr Giulia Sciorati is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research examines how performative practices shape the construction, reception, and contestation of intersubjective meanings in international politics, with an empirical focus on Global China. Her work has appeared in the European Journal of International Relations, the International Journal of Cultural Policy, and The International Spectator.
More about this event
This event is part of the LSE Festival: How to save the planet running from Monday 15 to Saturday 20 June 2026. This year's Festival explores how existential threats including the climate crisis, conflict and AI are affecting all parts of the world, transforming the way and where we live, and how our societies function. With a series of events asking what can we be doing to save the Earth, its people and environment? Booking for all Festival events will open on Monday 18 May.
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