ARENA organized an International Workshop on "Imagining 'Race' and Hegemony in (Inter) Asia" on July 19-20, 2008 in Seoul, Korea; the workshop was organized in collaboration with The Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung (FES) and Institute for East Asian Studies at SungkongHoe University (IEAS).

"Imagining 'Race' and Hegemony in (Inter) Asia" endevored to bring "race" to the forefront of existing social justice discourse in Asia, while bridging the disjuncture in understanding between "native Asian" and "Asian Diaspora" struggles. ARENA hoped to broaden and complicate the scope of existing scholarship and activism on oppression in Asia that either ignores race or treats it merely as a local, narrow identity (i.e. "ethinicity and "nationality") instead of connecting it to larger, global constructs.

For two days, academics and activists from Asia, The U.S and Europe explored how "race" and racialization intersect with other forms of oppression (sexism, heterosexism, class conflict, religious presecution, nationalism, 'western hegemony' in an increasely "globalized", "multicultural", and "multiracial" Asia.