This introduction scans the effects of mobile-phone communication, particularly in South Asia. It focuses on three important areas: political economy, politics and social practices. By 2012 India had more than 900 million telephone subscribers, 96 per cent of them on cell phones, and the majority of users were the poor. At the other end of …
East Asian pop culture can be seen as an integrated cultural economy emerging from the rise of Japanese and Korean pop culture as an influential force in the distribution and reception networks of Chinese language pop culture embedded in the ethnic Chinese diaspora. Taking Singapore as a locus of pan-Asian Chineseness, Chua Beng Huat provides …
Structure Audience and Soft Power in East Asian Pop Culture: TransAsia Screen Cultures Read More »
Bringing together scholars from a diverse range of disciplines,The City as Target provides a sustained and critical response to the relationship between the concept of targeting (in its many forms) and notions of understanding, imagining and shaping the urban. Among the many spatial and graphic terms used to describe cities in urban studies, the word target …
What role do objects play in crafting the religions of Southeast Asia and shaping the experiences of believers? The Spirit of Things explores religious materiality in a region marked by shifting boundaries, multiple beliefs, and trends toward religious exclusivism. While most studies of religion in Southeast Asia focus on doctrines or governmental policy, contributors to this volume …
The Spirit of Things: Materiality and Religious Diversity in Southeast Asia Read More »
This paper seeks to locate the household in research on global migration and transborder social and economic integration. The focus is on the household as a basic institution in social reproduction. The discussion begins by comparing concepts of the household in society, starting with peasant studies of the household as a self-sufficient unit of production. It …
Few would deny that the most significant weapon in India’s cultural and artistic armory is its avowedly commercial cinema, now known as Bollywood. This anthology aims to portray the “soft” power of Bollywood, which makes it a unique and powerful disseminator of Indian culture and values abroad. The essays in the book examine Bollywood’s popularity …
When and how did the Olympic movement take root in India? Who were the early players and why did they appropriate Olympics sport to further their political ambitious? In most accounts of Olympics history across the world, India’s Olympic journey is a mere footnote. Olympics: The India Story sets that right. Drawing on previously unused archival sources, it …
Across Asia today, rapid economic and social change means the region’s heritage is simultaneously under threat and undergoing a revival as never before. This volume examines heritage as a key component in the unfolding modernities of Asia, moving between analytical scales to address questions of tourism, urban planning, national or ethnic expressions of identity, conflict, memorialization, and …
The desirability of religious pluralism is widely accepted in most modern societies, being considered the hallmark of a stable and progressive state. Such pluralism is based on the framework that the protection of religious freedom is essential to the survival of these societies, and that a neutral secular state is required to legally enforce such …
China’s growing economic, political, and cultural power is an important global issue; Chinese people are increasingly interested in thinking about their country’s future as a world power. This article introduces the special issue ‘China’s futures – and the world’s future’ by discussing how futurology works in China. It argues that Chinese futures studies exhibit two …
China Information – Special Issue: China’s Futures (Vol. 26 No. 2) Read More »
