In this edition
contributors have addressed the theme of 'Hegemony and Resistance in the
Asia-Pacific'. Individual and community experience in the Asia-Pacific
region is characterised by deep disparities drawn along the lines of
class, race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, nationality, and faith.
These disparities are the material evidence of continued domination of
certain groups by others through a combination of political and
ideological means – or hegemony. While the scope of this
conceptualisation of hegemony might differ from Gramsci’s original,
there is no doubt that his assertion that the exercise of power pervades
life from macro- to micro-experience still holds true. Indeed, if we are
to glance quickly at our own nations, cities, neighbourhoods or even
homes – as some of the contributors to this edition do – then the
exercise of hegemonic power will become only too apparent.
Concomitantly, power, in the Foucaultian sense, is never a zero-sum
game. Instead, power is always contingent, always in the making, never
complete and always subject to contestation and resistance. Moreover,
because hegemonic power pervades all aspects of our lives, the
opportunities to resist it or at least contest its meanings are also
ever present. The contributions in this issue offer different approaches
to understanding hegemony and resistance in the Asia-Pacific region.
Ranging from everyday experience to institutional politics and from
consumption to security, they each remind us of the continued centrality
of questions of power to an understanding of the Asia-Pacific region and
indeed the world.
Volume 3 No. 2, December 2005: Hegemony and Resistance in the
Asia-Pacific
Complete Journal,
Contents,
Editorial
Visual Essay
Tevita Havea,
'Push and Pull'
Creative Writing
Tonglu Li,
'The Final Confession of Mistress Wang'
Articles
Elena Kolesova,
'Struggle From the Margins: Hokkaido Popular Education Movement in the
Towering Shadow of the Japanese Examination System (1950-1969)'
Athena Nguyen,
'I'm Not a Racist, I Eat Dim Sims!: The Commodification
and Consumption of Asianness within White Australia'
Elena Atanassova-Cornelis,
'Japan and the 'Human Security' Debate:
History, Norms and Pro-active Foreign Policy'
Visual Essay
Brydee Rood,
'Habitat' - with an interview by Winsome Wild
Reviews
Kathy Ooi,
review of Histories, Cultures, Identities: studies in
Malaysian Chinese Worlds
Margaret Barnhill Bodemer,
review of Imagined Ancestries of Vietnamese
Communism: Ton Duc Thang and the Politics of History and Memory
Tim Neale,
review of Kafka on the Shore
Chris Payne,
review of The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film and
The Japan Journals 1947-2004
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