Cultural Studies/Asian Studies: Alternatives, Intersections, and Contradictions in Asian Social Science

Abstract

AbstractThe social sciences in Asia face a peculiar theoretical challenge. Heirs to ancient civilizations and traditions of thought and cradles to all of the great world religions, they nevertheless perceive themselves as suffering from a "theoretical deficit". High theory is almost entirely Western and in fact largely European in provenance. This essay is directed to the possibility of constructing an Asian variety of cultural studies as a response to the hegemony of European social theory, and as an attempt to redress the balance of theory-power in the world intellectual economy.