Genealogies of The Asian Present Situating Inter-Asia Cultural Studies

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It is now nearly twenty years since the Inter-Asia cultural studies (IACS) project began to take shape through conversations amongst like-minded social science and humanities scholar-activists drawn from different Asian contexts. Because of the location of the initiators of the project, a strong North-East Asia base was developed first, with Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and China becoming major hubs of activity, and Singapore emerging as a key institutional location. India and Bangladesh registered a presence that would become stronger over time, and so did Indonesia. Australia too was a significant presence from the beginning. People from many other countries in Asia have taken part in the IACS project since the late 1990s, but the places named here are the ones where the project became institutionally anchored.

The project was imagined initially as an intellectual movement, conjoined with social movements in diverse ways in each locale, entailing physical travel and exchanges so as to make it easier to speak across places and to each other. Thus, the movements were among and between social and intellectual fields, disciplines, groups, peoples and persons, with journals in different locations at the heart of the project. The Inter-Asia Journal on which the project was originally premised was envisaged as a platform for movements traversing all of the above, across different planes and points of intersection.' This was the sense in which the term 'Movements' was an integral part of the IACS imagination, and it still features on the cover of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies journal which began to be published from 2000 onwards. Early meetings and conferences also saw the participation of a good number of activists from country-wide and cross-Asian social movements ranging from feminist and gay-lesbian to peace initiatives to trade unions and livelihood concerns to civil society issues. The affiliated groups and publishing bodies included Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA), Naripokkho [meaning, on behalf of women] in Bangladesh, G/SRAT and Labor Education and Resources Center in Taiwan, and Alternative Culture and People's Solidarity for Popular Democracy (PSPD) in South Korea.

**Contents and Sample Pages**