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ABSTRACT
What is the place of the diasporas within the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies movement, and how can Asian diasporas in the West contribute to Inter-Asia's intellectual project of “problematising Asia”? Developing a notion of diaspora as method, this essay highlights the complementary relationship between the Asian Australian Studies Research Network and the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies network. It argues that the Inter-Asia network has much to gain from embracing the Asian Australian diaspora as an interlocutor with shared priorities and concerns, and that Asian Australian studies can also productively learn from Inter-Asia's alternative model of institutionalisation, thereby expanding its theoretical and methodological frames of reference.
Acknowledgments
I wish to dedicate this essay with much gratitude and affection to Professor Chua Beng Huat, whom I first met in Sydney, Australia, as a graduate student, and who has been an important mentor and inspiration throughout my academic (and social) life.
Notes on contributor
Olivia Khoo is Associate Professor in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Australia. She is the author of The Chinese Exotic: Modern Diasporic Femininity (Hong Kong University Press, 2007), and co-author (with Belinda Smaill and Audrey Yue) of Transnational Australian Cinema: Ethics in the Asian Diasporas (Lexington, 2013).
Notes
1 “Not least because of historical involvements in colonial conquest, Australia and New Zealand have been included from the beginning in the Inter-Asia project” (Morris Citation2014, 241). Audrey Yue is now based in Singapore; Koichi Iwabuchi and Meaghan Morris have also worked for many years between Asia (Japan and Hong Kong, respectively) and Australia.
2 For an example of a research project addressing Australia's increasing enmeshment with the region's media cultures, see Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP160100304, “Transforming Cultural Identity: Media Flows Between Australia and East Asia” (Chief investigators: Koichi Iwabuchi, Francesca Martin, Audrey Yue and Olivia Khoo, 2016–2018).
3 While the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) is equally well known, scholars in the Asian Australian Studies Research Network have collectively developed a new field of “Asian Australian Studies,” as opposed to the study of Asia in Australia more broadly. Of course, there is overlap in membership across the associations given the relative size of Australian academia.
4 Jacqueline Lo used the term 'diaspora as method' in a talk presented at the Australian Academy of the Humanities conference, ‘Asia Australia: Transnational Connections’, Melbourne, Australia, November 2016. I am indebted to Jacqui for bringing this to my attention.
5 Rephrasing Koichi Iwabuchi’s (Citation2002) comments on Japan's relationship to Asia.
6 “Inter-Asian referencing is significant, as it makes concepts and theories derived from Asian experiences translocally relevant and shared, and engenders nuanced accounts of common and different East Asian experiences. Inter-Asian referencing is also significant for the study of East Asian media culture, as it has become an integral part of the production and consumption of media culture in the region. As such, Inter-Asian referencing is not just a matter of academic theorisation, but is also people's mundane practice of encountering Asian neighbours and making reference to other Asian modernities” (Iwabuchi Citation2014, 47).
7 Beginning with a focus on identity politics, the inaugural AASRN network conference was entitled Asian Australian Identities (AAI), and subsequent conferences have retained this stylisation (AAI 1-6), even while the network has grown in the last decade and a half from a focus on nationally based identity politics to a more transnational orientation (Kwok and Khoo Citation2017, 285): (1) Inaugural AAI: Asian Australian Identities (Australian National University; 27–29 September 1999). Convened by Jacqueline Lo, Helen Gilbert, and Tseen Khoo. AASRN symposium: Locating Asian Australian Cultures (Monash University, Clayton; 28 June 2005). Convened by Tseen Khoo. (2) AAI 2: The 2nd Asian Australian Identities conference (Rydges, Melbourne; 28–30 June 2007). Convened by Tseen Khoo and Jacqueline Lo. (3) AAI 3: Regionalising Asian Australian Identities (Curtin University; 13–14 November 2009). Convened by Olivia Khoo. (4) AAI 4: New communities, new racisms (University of Melbourne; 10–11 November 2011). Convened by Audrey Yue. (5) AAI 5: Mobilities (Immigration Museum, Melbourne; 26–27 November 2015). Convened by Tseen Khoo. (6) AAI 6: Embodiments and Inhabitations (Immigration Museum, Melbourne; 25–26 October 2017). Convened by Mridula Chakraborty and Jessica Walton. Perth AASRN Symposium, “Where's Your Asia” (University of Western Australia; 22 November 2018). Convened by Nadia Rhook and Denise Woods.
8 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies is affiliated with a number of centres and universities from around Asia, including the Center for the Study of Sexualities at the National Central University in Taiwan; Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong; the Center for the Study of Culture and Society in Bangalore, India; and the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, although it does not have a “centre.”
10 Morris (Citation2009, 47) notes,
by “real” collaboration, I mean a relationship in which there is sustained movement back and forth, rather than a series of short-term or formalistic “links”; from such movement, new projects arise that would not have been imaginable before the collaboration began.
11 See http://www.asianaustralianalliance.com; https://www.facebook.com/AsianAustralianDemocracyCaucus; and http://southerncrossings.com.au/about.
12 Morris (Citation2009, 46) has also said, in relation to the Inter-Asia network, “The collaborative relationships formed across IACS have a depth and quality that give them an open-ended future.” The eloquent phrasing of this sentiment provides a similarly constructive way of regarding Asian Australian studies’ relationship with Inter-Asia.