I. The Advantages of Looking at Culture

A. Two approaches to Asia

1. Region
2. Distinct communities, diverse individuals: unpacking "Asia"

B. Focus on culture and daily experiences
C. Tylor's definition of culture: passive, static
D. People's perceptions of culture

1. Articulations of tradition and modernity as way to make sense of broader processes
2. What does it mean to be Chinese, Japanese, Gorkha, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Indian, Korean?
3. Besky and the tripartite moral economy
4. Kuan: quality, affect bank, competition
5. Affective labor in domestic work and call centers: women's mobility challenges notions of gender --> surveillance, discipline, control

 

II. Cautions about a Focus on Culture

A. False ascription of culture as a cause

1. Espiritu on Vietnamese in the US
2. Lie on K-Pop
3. Schein and Chio on cultural tourism and ethnic othering

B. Culture isn't a black box explanation

 

III. The Advantages of a Focus on Individuals' Daily Experiences

A. Anthropological participant observation
B. Micro produces macro
C. Labor migration

1. Hoang on financescapes and sexscapes
2. Constable on Foreign Domestic Workers in Hong Kong

D. Globalization of culture

1. Sushi, K-Pop, hijab
2. Miao ethnicity, Han tourism
3. Hijab or Market Islam in Indonesia: Islamic Indonesian modernity

 

IV. The Limitations to a Focus on Individuals' Experiences

A. Paul Farmer: Hermeneutic of Generosity
B. Articulating context

1. Harms: civility and dispossession in Phu My Hung
2. Tizon: enslavement and emotion
3. Nhi T. Lieu: Vietnamese American claims about ao dai, cultural preservation, and anti-communism

C. How and why are particular views of the world persuasive to particular people under specific conditions? What do these perspectives reflect? What consequences do they have?
D. Commonalities

1. Rapid economic transformation
2. Urbanization
3. Growth of middle classes
4. Legacies of colonialism
5. Changing ideas about religion
6. Changing gender and family relations

E. Some Differences

1. Religion and values, including Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam
2. Ethnicity
3. Hijab can be fashionable
4. Economic systems
5. Migration: domestic and transnational
6. Colonialism

F. Theoretical and analytical approaches to making grounded claims about Asian or Asians
G. Asia as imagined community