Critical Asian Studies最新文献

{"title":"Deconstruction of a Dialogue","authors":"Steven Burik","doi":"10.4312/as.2023.11.1.221-243","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.1.221-243","url":null,"abstract":"It is common knowledge that Martin Heidegger’s attempts at engaging non-Western philosophy are very much a construct of his own making. This article in no way seeks to disagree with those observations, but argues two things: first, that Heidegger’s “dialogue” with his two main other sources of inspiration, the ancient Greek thinkers and the German poets, is not different in kind or in principle from his engagement with East Asia. One can of course quite easily argue that Heidegger’s main interest was the ancient Greek thinkers, and then the poets, and only lastly Asia. But this hierarchy in preference does not make Heidegger’s approach different in kind or in principle. Second, I argue that there is an important place in comparative philosophy for the type of thinking displayed by Heidegger in this kind of Auseinandersetzung (confrontation) with—and “appropriation” of—Asian (or Greek, or Poetic) thought.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84490777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Remembering Ngô Vĩnh Long, Renowned Scholar of Vietnam and Antiwar Activist","authors":"A. T. Nguyễn, D. Allen","doi":"10.1080/14672715.2023.2167220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2023.2167220","url":null,"abstract":"Internationally renowned historian and antiwar activist Ngô Vĩnh Long died at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Bangor, Maine on October 12, 2022, at the age of seventyeight. A professor of History at the University of Maine from 1985 until his death, Dr. Long was a leading scholar of the Vietnam/Indochina War and of the history of Vietnam from ancient times through French colonialism and US neocolonialism, postwar Vietnam, US-Vietnam relations, and Southeast and East Asia, especially China. From his undergraduate years at Harvard until the end of his life, Ngô Vĩnh Long was a courageous intellectual activist and an activist intellectual. He often described himself as a proud Vietnamese patriot who cared deeply about Vietnam, its past, and its suffering, as well as about the United States, his second home. Even in the darkest of times, he maintained his vision and hope for a much better Vietnam, a more egalitarian US, and much better US-Vietnam relations. Long sometimes described himself and was considered by some others as a pacifist. This is accurate if by “pacifist”wemean an opponent of war and a promoter of peace, reconciliation, and justice. But Professor Long was not the kind of pacifist who would uncompromisingly and openly condemn all expressions of violence, such as those exerted by Vietnamese anti-colonial and anti-imperialist revolutionaries, who were not always nonviolent in their struggles for freedom and independence. At the same time, he always worked to offer alternatives to violent responses to oppression, exploitation, and domination. Much of Ngô Vĩnh Long’s scholarly and activist priorities and commitments can be traced back to formative influences in his family upbringing and his youthful experiences in Vietnam. These influences and experiences shaped his commitment to speak truth to power. From his youth until the end of his life, Long was profoundly moved by the human-caused suffering of Vietnamese people, which he dedicated his life to alleviating. He believed in providing independent analyses regardless of the personal, career, and other risks he faced from those in Vietnam and in the United States challenged by his interpretations and actions. He had an unshakable commitment to study and educate others about the violent and unjust economic, political, and cultural realities of French colonialism, US neocolonialism, Chinese imperialism, and other expressions of domination in the contemporary world. In taking such positions, commitments, and actions, Ngô Vĩnh Long did not live under any illusions. He fully expected, and accepted, the negative consequences of his beliefs on his personal life, intellectual development, and professional career.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"61 1","pages":"156 - 167"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84239012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Party-State’s Hegemonic Project and Responses from Civil Society: The Case of Service-oriented NGOs in China","authors":"S. Yang","doi":"10.1080/14672715.2022.2164738","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2022.2164738","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article investigates the Chinese party-state’s hegemonic project to construct social consent in NGOs and how they react to this. Using service-oriented NGOs as examples, it argues that the changing institutional dynamics of NGO governance in China demonstrates that Chinese civil society is a site of ideological struggle. The party-state has adapted some foreign concepts and practices of civil society, which have been popular in China since the reform era, to serve its political and socioeconomic agenda, while avoiding political challenges of liberal values and discourse. Civil society’s hegemonic transformation relies on two major mechanisms—professionalization and Maoist incorporation. This process, however, also leaves some space for NGOs to act differently. Some have been comfortably incorporated into the state-led welfare system and reproduce authoritarian norms and practices among their beneficiaries, whereas counter-hegemonic activism still exists among groups that link their stance and agenda closely with marginalized groups in society.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"40 - 61"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72792698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Wukan: Failed Promises of the Era of Reform and Opening","authors":"John W. Tai","doi":"10.1080/14672715.2022.2160366","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2022.2160366","url":null,"abstract":"The perception of the Chinese political system as a monolithic entity that is primed to wield coercion against individuals and groups, especially since Xi Jinping ascended to the top of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2011, suggests the futility of protest and the likelihood of its decline. The reality is vastly at odds with this perception. By all accounts, protests have been on the rise since 1993. According to the Chinese government, there were 8,700 protests nationwide that year. By 2005, that number rose to 87,000. The Chinese government stopped reporting the number of protests after 2005, but Tsinghua University sociologist Sun Liping estimated that 180,000 protests took place in China in 2010. More recently, FreedomHouse’s China Dissent Monitor reported that 735 in-person and online protests took place throughout China in 2022 between the months of May and October. Surveying the numerous protests that have taken place in China over the last twenty years, one incident stands out both in terms of its duration and the degree to which it captured national and international attention. In September 2011, just two months before the Party Congress that officially anointed Xi Jinping as CCP Secretary General, thousands of villagers in Wukan, a fishing village in Guangdong Province, protested illegitimate land sale practices by village officials that stretched back to 1993. Wukan was more than a single protest. It was a series of protests that culminated in the election of a new village committee in March 2012. But the story of Wukan sadly ended in 2016, when a number of villagers, including nearly all the protest leaders, were given prison sentences. The charges ranged from corruption and illegal assembly to spreading false information. One protest leader was ultimately forced to leave for the United States, where he learned of his father’s imprisonment and continued to raise awareness of the injustices suffered by Wukan villagers. The documentary Lost Course (迷航), which won a coveted Golden Horse Award for best documentary – Taiwan’s equivalent of the Academy Award and one of the top entertainment awards in the Mandarin Chinese market worldwide – is an attempt to record the story of Wukan from the perspectives of the villagers. It offers an intimate look at the thoughts, emotions, and actions of the villagers. In this sense, the documentary","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"146 - 155"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78262843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Green silk roads, partner state development, and environmental governance: Belt and road infrastructure on the Sino-East African frontier","authors":"Jesse Rodenbiker","doi":"10.1080/14672715.2022.2150249","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2022.2150249","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is reorienting global development. Few scholars, however, query relationships between green silk road discourse, BRI infrastructure, partner state development goals, and environmental governance. This article details the roots of green silk road discourse in efforts to environmentally engineer China's desert landscapes. Much like large-scale nature-based infrastructure projects in China, BRI infrastructure projects abroad precipitate a range of socioeconomic and environmental outcomes. Through juxtaposing terrestrial infrastructure development in Ethiopia with maritime infrastructure development in Djibouti, the article demonstrates how different types of BRI infrastructure projects shape environmental governance and advance the development agendas of partner countries. Sugar plantations, roads, railways, and energy infrastructure in Ethiopia further Ethiopian state development plans while transforming Indigenous people's relations to their land and livelihoods. In Djibouti, port infrastructure and military bases figure centrally in strategic rentiership for the Djiboutian state with ancillary effects on fisheries and international trade. The article illustrates how relative articulations between East African central government development interests, environmental governance, and infrastructure are mediated by varieties of Chinese capital. The comparative analysis disrupts simplistic narratives of “win-win” partnerships and “China as threat” to partner state autonomy.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"169 - 192"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82126482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rebuffing Bengali dominance: postcolonial India and Bangladesh","authors":"Willem van Schendel","doi":"10.1080/14672715.2022.2150870","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2022.2150870","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A vast literature analyzes how Bengali identities developed in colonial India. This article steps away from both celebratory approaches and a focus on the colonial period. Instead, it explores how non-Bengalis increasingly challenged Bengali superiority in more recent times. As the colonial incarnation of a genteel Bengaliness lost its bearings and split into competing territorial manifestations in East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) and India, it encountered rising hostility and developed both assertive and timid configurations. This article offers an exploratory overview of how various groups of non-Bengalis have been rebuffing Bengali dominance by means of cultural distancing, graphic resistance, the ideology of indigeneity, insurgency, and the legal and military force of postcolonial states.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"53 1","pages":"105 - 135"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74937584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Agent politics of Chinese think tanks and cultural industry governance in China’s “new era”","authors":"Wen-hsuan Tsai, Gan Li, Weiqing Song","doi":"10.1080/14672715.2022.2147853","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2022.2147853","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the relationship between the Chinese government and domestic think tanks. Chinese think tanks in the cultural sector have a strong demand-side orientation; that is, they closely follow the instructions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in their stand on culture-related policies. Since 2018, the CCP has strengthened its control over the propaganda and cultural affairs, using think tanks to this end. Think tanks act as dual agents, maximizing the benefits offered by their two principals – the party government and private businesses, while prioritizing the former. The paper examines the development of the Putuo Island Park in Zhejiang Province and the Cultural Industry Research Institute, the key cultural industry think tank in this province. While upholding Xi Jinping’s aspiration of developing China into a “cultural great power,” cultural think tanks’ main function is to endorse government policies and guide businesses to support those policies when necessary. The CCP under Xi has intensified its manipulation of think tanks to reinforce its control over ideology and the socialist market economy, resulting in a more complex relationship between the state and think tanks.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"57 1","pages":"20 - 39"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81908594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Precarity and Islamism in Indonesia: the contradictions of neoliberalism","authors":"Diatyka Widya Permata Yasih, V. Hadiz","doi":"10.1080/14672715.2022.2145980","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2022.2145980","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article investigates the link between growing precarity – associated with the process of neoliberal economic globalization – and growing Islamist tendencies in Indonesian society, through a case study of app-enabled transport workers. It applies a Gramscian notion of common sense to understand workers’ responses to their experiences of socio-economic marginalization and the articulation of their grievances. The combination of the near hegemony of a neoliberal worldview that encourages individual entrepreneurial prowess and an Islamist focus on moral self-cultivation inadvertently contributes to workers’ normalization of their precarity, furthering the atomization of the workforce. It also helps provide the setting for mobilizations of the urban precariat under Islamic banners, without challenging the imposition of neoliberal ideology on work and life.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"21 1","pages":"83 - 104"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83254089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"In stagnation: a case study of a Chinese community-based labor NGO in the Yangtze River Delta","authors":"Diego Gullotta, Lili Lin","doi":"10.1080/14672715.2022.2145979","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2022.2145979","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines the capacities of community-based labor nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in China to raise workers’ consciousness and build solidarity among workers in the post-2018 era. It closely studies the transformation of a community-based labor NGO in the Yangtze River Delta and investigates the relationships among managers, workers, community members, NGO staff members, and volunteers. Although state repression and funding concerns limit the space for workers and subalterns to represent themselves and act politically in China, the internal organizational structure of labor NGOs such as this has exacerbated their stagnation. This is due to a top-down decision-making process, a lack of democratic participation and transparency, selective inclusion, a neglect of collective possibilities, and techno-social features such as social media technology. The result is maintenance of the status quo. These organizational limitations prevent community-based labor NGOs from functioning as a progressive force and turns them into marginal social forces that strive to survive and are incapable of representing workers and adjusting to workers changing needs.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"53 1","pages":"1 - 19"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87616994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The limits of civil society activism in Indonesia: the case of the weakening of the KPK","authors":"Abdil Mughis Mudhoffir","doi":"10.1080/14672715.2022.2123019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2022.2123019","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper examines the limits of Indonesian civil society activism in advancing democratic politics. This activism, mainly by middle-class reformers, has not only failed to prevent democracy from being hijacked by illiberal interests but also contributed to justifying the deepening of political illiberalism. A predominantly anti-political approach among civil society activists mainly aims to establish new institutions and policy designs to generate reforms, while allowing entrenched power relations to remain unchallenged and to pervade new institutions. Meanwhile, social protests mobilized by this kind of activism, both on the streets and social media platforms, also tend to be sporadic and have no clear leadership and structure, while protest demands are often contradictory, making these too weak to challenge anti-democratic interests. This paper challenges existing studies that extoll Indonesian civil society activists for their success in advocating certain legislation, policies, and institutions. The weakening of the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, KPK) illustrates how even trusted democratic institutions equipped with extraordinary powers and capacities are vulnerable to vested interests. Not only have Indonesian civil society activists failed to defend the KPK, but many of them have justified attempts to paralyze this agency.","PeriodicalId":46839,"journal":{"name":"Critical Asian Studies","volume":"57 1","pages":"62 - 82"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83185926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}