On 10 January, the Centre organised a luncheon seminar entitled “The Country and the City in Chongqing: Old Markets and New Geographies in Urbanising Tongliang", delivered by, Prof. Carolyn Cartier, a renowned scholar from the University of Technology Sydney.

Based on her fieldwork in Tongliang, a city district of Chongqing, Prof. Cartier contextualized the continuity of periodic markets in the “three rurals” debate since the 1990s and the city-town system of urbanisation. The seminar attracted around 20 participants, and many insightful comments and questions were raised during the discussion session.