The spectre of Europe: Knowledge, cultural studies and the ‘rise of Asia’

Abstract

This introduction starts with an exploration of the ambiguity of the idea of Europe. In particular, two tropes – Europe-as-theory and Europe-as-power – continue to haunt knowledge production and cultural studies in Asia. How to proceed? What should cultural studies do if it is to embrace this historical conjuncture of shifting modes of knowledge and power production, how to deal with its Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism? While this special issue allies itself with attempts to unsettle Eurocentrism in knowledge production, it is not making any plea for regionally-rooted practices or theories. It argues for better understanding, dialogue and cross-fertilisation between cultural studies and area studies. The former needs the latter’s sensibility to spatial and cultural context as much as the latter needs the former’s theorisations. This introduction is an opening. It opens up not only to the ensuing articles but, more importantly, an occasion for the inevitable encounter argued for in this special issue.

Knowledge circulation in urban geography/urban studies, 1990–2010: Testing the discourse of Anglo-American hegemony through publication and citation patterns

“…One foremost consequence of this centreperiphery hierarchy is the universalisation of some epistemologies and intellectual traditions, which usually stem from Europe or North America, while obfuscating the historical contingencies and contexts of any ensemble of questions and ideas (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999). Critics have attacked the varied versions of universalist claims to knowledge, be it Eurocentrism, Anglo-American hegemony or simply US dominance (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999;Chakrabarty, 2000;Chow and de Kloet, 2014).…”

“…A corollary of this view is that Western hegemony is not only economic and political, but intellectual and educational (Mignolo, 2002). As Chow and de Kloet (2014) and Mignolo (2014) pointedly argue, the spectre of the 'West' disciplines the ways in which non-Western scholars think and narrate, resulting in 'captive minds' that depend on the epistemic universe of the powerful.…”

“…Even more provocative proposals include the suggestion of 'learning from the periphery' (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2012), or the warning that we should be wary of Western scholars taking the lead in producing knowledge on the non-West, lest the project of de-Westernisation is to be re-Westernised (Mignolo, 2014). In a different vein, those not content with the idea of indigenising knowledge have deliberated on the potentially productive nature of inbetweenness (Bunnell et al, 2005;Simonsen, 2002), and suggested that straddling the borders between different intellectual traditions helps to avoid parochialism and retreat to local knowledge at the expense of dialogue and comparison (Chow and de Kloet, 2014).…”

Doing criminology on media and crime in Asia

“…They are well aware of the western imperialism in the production of media and cultural products as well as the global knowledge production (Chow and De Kloet, 2014; Erni and Chua, 2005). There is an ongoing project on “decolonizing” media studies (Erni and Chua, 2005: 2) and “provincializing” cultural studies (Chow and De Kloet, 2014: 4) to better understand media and popular culture within an inter-Asian context. Media criminologists could build upon this tradition to critically reflect on the applicability of Anglo-American theories to an Asian context.…”

University Geography in China: History, opportunities, and challenges

“…One the one hand, it is a comparison that makes sense in the context of Transactions , and the authors of this piece are themselves active practitioners of publishing in Anglophone journals. On the other hand, it is because Anglophone Geography occupies an undoubtedly dominant position in the production of geographical knowledge as part and parcel of a general Anglophone hegemony in international publication and knowledge dissemination (Chow & de Kloet, 2014). By Anglophone Geography, we refer to a realm of knowledge embodied in books and so‐called “international” journals published in English, especially those indexed by the Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) (Kong & Qian, 2019).…”