I'm assistant professor jim. Javier head of the department of linguistics college of social sciences and philosophy university of the philippines dilemma and chair of the glocal khalad the fourth conference on asian linguistic anthropology to be held in manila the philippines. The conference hosted by up. Diliman is co-hosted by local school of oriental and african studies university of london. The global kala is a fully focused isi indexed conference and is a member of the prestigious world council of anthropological associations. The global kala works to develop the field of asian linguistic anthropology and to strengthen asian language communities and linguistic and anthropological research. The glocal kala has now for years networked academics globally their institutions and their work on asian languages and cultures to foreground the linguistic and cultural anthropologies of asia and to connect the anthropologies of east and west the glocal kala thus aims to breathe new life into understanding asian languages and societies economically culturally ethnographically philosophically and anthropologically similarly its associated journal the journal of asian linguistic anthropology or jala is a peer-reviewed academic journal with focus on high quality submissions. The jala as a free-to-publish journal refuses to implement a page system yet publishing with the jala requires a highly stringent double blind review process following the growth of linguistic anthropology globally through the glocal kala and other associations the kala promises to push the field of asian linguistic anthropology into new spaces and new directions. The theme of the global kala symbolism and new society describes the need for symbolic representation in the highly changing asia as has been the case throughout a larger global society asian societies have sought increasingly rapid change seeking no less than online spaces to contextualize and to legitimize the effects of this rapid change recent events have patently mediated the shift to online interaction a shift which has thus intensified the development and possibly the invention of a range of new symbolisms and symbolic clusters that now have a limited use in offline spaces.

The scopus isi indexed glocal kala 2021 conference thus represents a major step in salvaging cultural and linguistic heritage of asia thus assigning agency to asian languages linguistics and their anthropologies the philippines with its rich linguistic and cultural diversity and its centeredness in asia provides the optimal place for the khalad. We thus welcome the world to manila. The philippines for the scopus isi indexed local khala symbolism and new society.