Asia Pacific Viewpoint

Shin, HaeRan; Gutierrez, Cassandra

2024 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12427

This paper examines migrant placemaking in South Korea as a proactive response to governing power that works through making (im)mobilities. Unlike previous discussions that have viewed migrants' empowerment in political activities and identity‐related in a particular type of enclaves, this study sees migrant placemaking as a proactive response to governing through mobilities and comprehensively embraces various types of placemaking in South Korea. Based on mix‐up of various qualitative research methods, this study documents the migrant placemaking practices over time of two representative and quite different migrant groups: Chosǒnjok's enclave in Kuro‐Taerim area of Seoul and Latin Americans' digital communities. The former represents a big migrant group's physical and discursive migrant placemaking. Chosǒnjok migrants struggled with their stigmatised images and mistrust towards both China and Korea. The latter represents a small migrant group's digital placemaking. Latin American migrants were left without much knowledge about and recognition from the Korean society. We demonstrate how in seeking a community for themselves they adapt their environment, thereby empowering themselves. In demonstrating the interrelation of migrant placemaking and governing power, this study contributes to the understanding of the circuits of power, mobility and place in the case of migrants in South Korea.

Sharp, Emma L.; Yee, Kenzi; Makey, Leane; Fisher, Karen

2024 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12429

This research article outlines a provocation for diverse and experimentally open, situated approaches to exploring care and caring. The diversely positioned authors discuss this idea using the subject of soil, in the place and context of Aotearoa New Zealand. Little is known about the diversity of ways that everyday people value, or, have caring relationships for/with soil, among a plethora of research that positions soil ‘care’ around, for example, commercial food production, waste‐sinking, or property land value. To study diverse care in relation to soil, as with many relational subjects, requires equivalent diversity in the ways in which we might explore it. Here we outline the basis for diverse, situated methodologies that necessarily lead to a diversity of methods. This paper looks at the methodological imperatives that lead to exploring care, and discusses a variety of methods that generate different forms of ‘data’ with different forms of representation of that care. We observe that to holistically observe care relations with soil requires a diversity of methodologies, inherently ontological and epistemological – worldmaking. We discuss situated and enactive, affective approaches of Kaupapa Māori enquiry, monitoring and arts‐based approaches to ‘measure’ soil care taking place, in place, and contextualise this with our own author positionality. We discuss this suite of experimental, reflexive, affective and responsive ways to measure soil care that are contingent on that being cared about, for, with and by, and which reciprocally give care.

Wunderlich, Jens‐Uwe; Luo, Chih‐Mei

2024 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12425

In 2020 Germany released its Indo‐Pacific guidelines in response to global shifts and escalating Sino‐US rivalries in the region. This article scrutinises Germany's ambitions and stance in the Indo‐Pacific, utilising the middle power concept as an analytical tool. It argues that Germany's Indo‐Pacific strategy is broadly in line with its wider foreign policy approach rather than marking a radical shift. Divided into three sections, the article explores middle power theories, Germany's foreign policy approach and Germany's Indo‐Pacific tilt. Assessing Germany's progress in the Indo‐Pacific, the paper employs a middle power framework based on capabilities, identity and engagement. We argue that Germany seems intent on positioning itself as a civilian middle power, evident in its deeply engrained norms determining identity and guiding engagement. The article uses a qualitative approach, drawing from primary material such as official statements of German policymakers and policy documents, supplemented by secondary sources covering the literature on middle power dynamics, the Indo‐Pacific region and Germany's foreign policy. Employing thematic documentary analysis, the paper identifies recurring patterns and trends in Germany's evolving role in the Indo‐Pacific.

Gibert‐Flutre, Marie; Cosatto, Sarah

2024 Asia Pacific Viewpoint

doi: 10.1111/apv.12428

The rise of the notion of ‘inclusion’ in urban planning, seen in phrases like inclusive city, calls for a critical analysis of its evolving meaning and its spatial, social and political implications. Paradoxically, the meaning of urban inclusion has narrowed such that it now primarily refers to accessibility for people with disabilities. At the intersection of urban studies and critical disability studies, our article investigates the conceptions, criteria and modes of production underlying the implementation of urban inclusion in Singapore's ‘Enabling Village’, a purportedly inclusive space opened in 2015. We use a mixed‐methods approach, analysing official narratives and conducting site visits to understand the site as both an appropriated and a branded space. We show that, in Singapore, the inclusion agenda interacts with the city‐state's distinctive approach to planning and governance, where social issues are ‘engineered’ and give rise to replicable operational models. Our hypothesis is that implementing the inclusive city through the production and promotion of ‘inclusive’ urban projects such as the Enabling Village fuels the expansion of Singapore as a state‐led ‘entrepreneurial city’ (Harvey, Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography 1989; 71(1):3–17). In particular, operationalising ‘urban inclusion’ in this way allows for the reinvention of Singapore as a global urban model.