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Revisiting Distant Divides and Intimate Connections in Asia: Comments on Engseng Ho's “Inter-Asian Concepts for Mobile Societies”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2017

Nicole Constable
Nicole Constable*
Affiliation:
Nicole Constable ([email protected]) is Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Research Professor in the University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
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Extract

I am honored to comment on Engseng Ho's provocative essay through the lens of my own research on inter-Asian connections and mobilities in and beyond Asia. The abstract for the panel, entitled “The Flow of Migration beyond the State,” stated that “much scholarship on Asia is framed by organizational schemes that engage in spatial relationships and contrasts” (e.g., cores and peripheries, uplands and lowlands, mainland and islands) and that the idea of the “nation as a bordered entity” cross-cuts and transforms such common binaries. The panel's abstract also stated that the panel's goal was to “interrogate these borders” and to “rethink these schemes” and forge new understandings about nations, regions, and Asia by addressing questions such as: What happens when we decenter the state? What concepts of society capture external relations and engagements? What concepts apart from class, status, race, and gender will help us get a better understanding of transregional phenomena?

Type
Article Commentary
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 76 , Issue 4 , November 2017 , pp. 953 - 959
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2017 

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