The history and future of identity politics and popular culture in East Asia1,2

Abstract

This research note is the abridged version of the keynote speech delivered at the Second Conference of the East Asian Popular Culture Association (EAPCA II), on 4 December 2020 at the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) workshop for the twentieth anniversary of the International Taiwan Studies Center, College of Liberal Arts, NTNU, Taipei, and its audio-recorded version with live discussion took place online on 11–12 January 2021, at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. The oral keynote speech covered five parts. The first part sketches the geographical and conceptual idea of East Asia, with inclusion of a dichotomous self-concept based on gender identification. The second part covers a brief description on the history of the region, paying attention to the comparison between China’s and Japan’s development paths. This is followed by five selected case studies on Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Taiwan that single out some of the specificities of their popular culture products. The fourth section contextualizes these specificities against the background of five characteristics of the region’s popular culture and identity politics. The concluding remarks reiterate the main points.