AANB11054U Changing subjectivities in Asia

Over the past decades we have heard popular media stories about “indolent Asians” or “effeminate [male] Asians”; about the dangers of Asian population growth  and of Asian economic growth; about low-wage, high-tech and “just-in-time” production facilities; about “Asian values” as communitarian drivers of economic growth in contrast with individualist concerns in the West; and about “tiger moms” and expectations of achievement. How do we make sense of such diverse and often contradictory views? These – Western, Eurocentric – views are predicated in assumptions that Asian “possess” certain subjectivities that set them fundamentally apart from Europeans. In this course students will explore how subjectivities in Asia may be different from European subjectivities but also how diverse subjectivities are in different regions in Asia, and indeed within these regions. Moreover, subjectivities are not set in stone, but are changing across generations but even within one lifetime; yet, in spite of contextual and subjective differences and changes, people are able to speak to each other as they inhabit one world. We will be looking at anthropology in Asia, as well as at Asian anthropologies as Asia and Asian anthropology is undergoing a process of rapid postcolonialization, industrialization and postindustrialization. Focus is on how  subjectivities are fashioned as a result of specific social relationships, political and economic transformations, technological innovations and how these are guided by notions of the body and by concerns with success, health, autonomy and belonging. The course has an explorative character as we will be looking at how these complex intersections form the basis of fruitful theorizations based on our individual theoretical approaches.

The course will address the themes above divided over four regional/subcontinental clusters (North & Central Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia) that are taught by teacher with direct and recent research experience in these regions.