Kusanagi Tsuyoshi x Chonangang: Transcending Japanese/Korean Ethnic Boundaries in Japanese Popular CultureShu Min, Yuen
doi: 10.1080/10357823.2011.552708pmid: N/A
Abstract In the last ten years or so, interest among the Japanese in their Korean neighbour has increased significantly. Yet, before the Korean Wave hit Japan in the early 2000s, Kusanagi Tsuyoshi, member of popular Japanese boy-band SMAP, had already débuted and gained popularity as Chonangang, his Korean alter-self. From releasing a Korean pop-music single to interviewing South Korean Presidents on Japanese national television, it is undeniable that Kusanagi (and Chonangang) has brought Korea closer to the hearts of the Japanese. In this paper, I argue that Kusanagi's performances of and as Chonangang create a polyglotic, hybrid identity that functions as a “third space” through which notions of an underlying, essential Japanese (and Korean) identity can be destabilised. Beyond mere entertainment, Kusanagi's adoption of an identity position that is neither Japanese nor Korean, yet also both Japanese and Korean, enables the articulation of difference and hybridity which, I contend, has direct relevance to Japan–Korea and Japanese–resident Korean relations.
Development for Whom? Rural to Urban Resettlement at the Three Gorges Dam, ChinaWilmsen, Brooke; Webber, Michael; Yuefang, Duan
doi: 10.1080/10357823.2011.552707pmid: N/A
Abstract When farmers are dispossessed of their lands to make way for a development project it is often inevitable that there will not be enough land to go around. It is unlikely that parcels of fertile land are lying vacant in the surrounding areas awaiting distribution. It therefore becomes necessary for people who previously derived their livelihoods from the land to move into cities. This research explores what happens to a sample of such people and whether they are able to restore their livelihoods. It examines the Three Gorges Dam resettlement in China's Hubei province and discovers that while the Chinese government has devised an inspired toolbox of benefit-sharing initiatives, the gains accrue to a minority who live in the most amenable location of the Three Gorges area. It concludes that the availability of capital through benefit-sharing initiatives does not guarantee its productive use.
Confucian China and Jeffersonian America: Beyond Liberal DemocracyChang, Peter
doi: 10.1080/10357823.2011.552100pmid: N/A
Abstract This paper begins by reviewing the ancient Chinese worldview, one imbued with cultural particularism wherein the Middle Kingdom identified itself as the centre of the universe. I then distinguish the ways in which historically the Confucian East and Christian West have respectively exerted cultural hegemony. I next analyse China's rebuffing of liberal democracy, and how the CCP's retention of one-party rule has generated concerns about its legitimacy. I conclude by showing that China and America each possess moral traditions – specifically Confucianism and Jeffersonian Deism – that have overlapping outlooks. Both maintain a worldview that disavows extremism. Based on this broader philosophical-religious analysis, I argue that contentions over liberal democracy notwithstanding, China and America share moral ideals vital for confronting some of today's exigencies.
Race, Class and Politics in Peninsular Malaysia: The General Election of 2008Fee, Lian
Kwen; Appudurai, Jayanath
doi: 10.1080/10357823.2011.552706pmid: N/A
Abstract Racial politics have bedevilled peninsular Malaysia since independence in 1957, largely sustained by a ruling coalition of partners sharing power unequally, in a consociational government. The effect of a racialised practice over fifty years is the institutionalisation of the politics of ethnic pluralism, each component driven by its own internal dynamic and cultural logic: for the Chinese it is the politics of economic security, for the Tamils the politics of religion and caste, and for the Malays incipient class antagonisms that are historically rooted in a feudal society. In the general election of 2008, there was an unprecedented swing of votes across the ethnic divide against the ruling government, resulting in the loss of five state governments to an opposition coalition espousing multiculturalism and the loss of the government's two-thirds majority in Parliament for the first time. However, we argue that these developments do not signal the beginning of the end of racial politics in peninsular Malaysia. Instead, the opposition has skilfully recoded multiculturalism as social justice and accountability in racial terms, and effectively communicated this to an essentially racialised electorate at a time when Malays, Chinese and Tamils had lost faith in the ruling government's ability to address deep-seated grievances specific to each of these communities.
In Defence of the Secular? Islamisation, Christians and (New) Politics in Urbane MalaysiaGuan, Yeoh
Seng
doi: 10.1080/10357823.2011.552101pmid: N/A
Abstract Besides the clarion call for a “new politics” by opposition political parties, a significant catalyst that arguably swayed Christian electoral choices in the landmark Malaysian general elections of March 2008 was the counsel by religious leaders to safeguard “the secular state”. This action was prompted by recent high profile controversial legal cases that were perceived to be a serious erosion of the freedom of religion clause guaranteed in the secularist Federal Constitution. In this essay, I not only examine the recent antecedents of this course of action but also delve into the more distant past in order to draw out how the apparently impervious categories of “religion” and “the secular” have been implicated in the structuring of social and political imaginaries in Malaysia.