OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Traditional approaches to territorial conflicts would suggest that the value of a disputed territory—be it strategic, economic, religious, or historical—drives conflict. Standard explanations of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute often fit this trope, pointing to the military or economic benefits possessing the islands would confer upon the claimant states. This presentation takes a different view, arguing that it is not the value of the islands that drives the conflict, but rather the role of the islands as a tangible object of conflict that generates their value. Drawing upon the concept of the MacGuffin—a plot device in movies that serves to produce dramatic conflict between protagonists—this talk will examine the ways in which the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute has become the centre of a dangerous contest between Japan and the People’s Republic of China.
