Conceptualizing ‘the Asian’ and Asian Women's Studies

Abstract

‘Asian Women’ or ‘Asian Women's Studies’ are an outcome of newly emerging knowledge production. This paper is an attempt to re-conceptualize and redefine these categories, while reflecting on existing post-colonial discourses. I would like to propose the developing of more positive theorization, institution building, and creating practices in Asian Women's Studies, not by merely critiquing the limitations of the western standard, but by superseding the dichotomous approaches of the West vs. the non-West, the global vs. the local, and identity vs. differences. This paper aims to set up a philosophical basis for asserting that a new horizon has been created by ‘women’ subjects through practices of solidarity and by assuming multiple identities as 'Asian Women, discussing locational feminism and the ontology of becoming.

Keywords:

• Asian
• Asian Women's Studies
• ontology of differences
• ontology of becoming
• locational feminism
• spatiality