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Book Review Chinese American Literature without Borders: Gender, Genre, and Form by King-Kok Cheung

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Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan | Date of Publication: 2016 | Language: English | ISBN: 978-1137453532

Reviewed by

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Windy Xiao Xue [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]

Department of English, University of Macau

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.23

Received: 30 April 2021 | Revised: 29 July 2021 | Accepted: 23 Aug 2021 | First Published: 5 February 2022

(This review is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Book Review Chinese American Literature without Borders: Gender, Genre, and Form by King-Kok Cheung

Chinese American Literature without Borders: Gender, Genre, and Form is a compelling model in the transnational comparative study, which examines the consciousness and aesthetics of Chinese American literature by throwing off shackles of language, culture and literary traditions.

“It looks to and from both the United States and China to reveal the multiple engagements of American-born and Sinophone writers”(1).

The author King-Kok Cheung, professor of Asian American Studies at UCLA, is an intellectual migrant standing at the crossroad between American and Chinese culture. This background affords her insight into the commonalities and differences between Chinese and Chinese American literature and the awareness of the significance of making the muffled voice heard on the two shores.

The whole book is divided into two parts, focusing on gender and genre & form respectively. The first part begins with the long-standing feud between Frank Chin and Maxine Hong Kingston, which Cheung points out seems to center on the problem of literary authenticity, but reveals the crisis of masculine identity in Asian American men, that is, males fear that their already asexual image would be further tarnished by Kingston’s memoir. To fully analyze this, in Chapter 2 Cheung introduces wen-wu dyad in traditional Chinese norms to disclose that reconstructing masculine identity by emphasizing wu (martial arts) and ignoring wen (arts) is a mistake as it merely caters to the western ideal; after using protagonists in China Boy by Gus Lee and Pangs of love by David Wong Louie to support this view in Chapter 3, Cheung further argues that this way to revive the image of Asian males is “a double bind” (p.94): if simply chasing the western ideal, they always fall short of it and risk restoring the patriarchal order; if sticking to Chinese wenren (poet-scholar), they feel afraid to perpetuate the existing stereotype. To solve this dilemma, Cheung proposes that Asian Americans should “resist one-way adaptation and turn racial stereotype on its head and into a source of inspiration” (p.95), recodifying traditional Chinese male image as manly, sexual and seductive, and teaching people from other cultural backgrounds to appreciate the charisma. Thereupon, in Chapter 4 and 5, she propounds and analyzes her ideal of masculinity—— Xu Zhimo, a romantic poet, and protagonists from American Knees by Shawn Wong, The Winged Seed by Li-Young Lee and Phoenix Eyes by Russell Leong, whose masculinity is demonstrated through arts and solicitude.

Part Two explores various innovations that Chinese and Chinese American writers have attempted. It first, in Chapter 6, zeros in on the innovation in the genre of autobiography, arguing that Chinese and Chinese American writers have fused familial, social and ethnic subjectivity into this genre, making this navel-gazing genre cross the boundaries of “generations, nations, epochs, race, gender, class, languages, accents, even across fact and fiction” (p.195). Chapter 7 examines a short story The Photograph written by Chinese author Bing Xin about a white woman’s life in China. Its uniqueness lies in its reversal of white gaze, and its description of the complexity of dynamics between two cultures. The last two chapters focus on innovation in language done by immigrant writer Ha Jin, who explores his bilingual style of expression, and poets Marilyn Chin and Russell Leong, who manoeuvre slanted allusion to Chinese tropes to bridge the gap between two cultures. 

One of the strengths of this study, in my opinion, is that the innovation of autobiographies is read through a transcultural lens. Going beyond the prolonged controversy of literary authenticity in this field, Cheung turns to analyze the root that generates the transformation of the autobiography. She adopts the concept of Gish Jen’s “two very different models of self-construal, independent and interdependent self” (p.173): the former is associated to the west, particularly America, while the latter is associated to the east, including China. Normally, autobiography is a western genre constantly showing the independent and individual self, while Asian American writers infuse this American “independent self” with the Chinese “interdependent self”. Thus, compared with Chinese autobiography writers, they stress self-invention and empowerment; compared with western autobiographers, they write less subjectively, constructing a multi-voiced narrative, taking account of the history and social environment, and fighting against the dominant culture. This fresh way to look at the innovation of Asian American literature is insightful and incisive. From such a vantage of point, we should not appreciate Asian American literature according to a single standard or mores but treat it as a convergence of two cultures.

Since this book covers literary works in both Chinese and English, an inconvenience that readers might encounter is the different translations of one single word or character. For example, Chapter 2 mentions several times Guan Yu, a character from a Chinese Classic The Three Kingdoms. But due to the different translations, he is expressed as Guan Yu (his name in Pinyin), or Guan Gong (his honorific in Pinyin), or Kwan Kung (his honorific in Cantonese). Therefore, it might be confusing for readers who are not familiar with Chinese culture. However, Cheung, who has predicted this potential difficulty for non-Chinese readers, adds an index at the end of this book which lists all the works and writers that she has mentioned in the book with different versions of names. In this way, readers can refer to this part for the clarification of these proper names.

To conclude, Chinese American Literature without Borders: Gender, Genre, and Form is an inclusive comparative study on Asian American Literature, which covers a wide range of works written by Sinophone, American-born, and immigrant writers, be they autobiographies which rewrite feminine codes, novels which present alternatives to masculinity, short stories which critique orientalism, or poems which assert heritage from both Chinese and Western cultures. The eclectic selection of literary works and the embracing attitude towards innovations in Asian American literature are not only intriguing to readers but also illuminating to postgraduate students and scholars in this field.

References

Cheung, K. (2016). Chinese American Literature without Borders: Gender, Genre, and Form. Palgrave Macmillan.

Windy Xiao Xue is currently an MA student in the English department of the University of Macau. She is researching in the field of Asian American literature.

Book Review: Translingual Words: An East Asian Lexical Encounter with English by Jieun Kiaer

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The book examines the history and reasons for the development of the translingual process, its two-way influence on culture and the lexicon of both parties combined with clear interpretations of linguistic terms.

Publisher: Routledge. Date of Publication: 2019. Language: English. ISBN: 9780367607517

Reviewed by

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Yi Xuan Jia [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]

University of Macau, Macau

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–4. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.22

Received: 16 Mar 2021 | Revised: 9 June 2021 | Accepted: 22 Oct 2021 | First Published: 5 February 2022

(This review is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Book Review: Translingual Words: An East Asian Lexical Encounter with English by Jieun Kiaer

The book examines the history and reasons for the development of the translingual process, its two-way influence on culture and the lexicon of both parties combined with clear interpretations of linguistic terms. The first chapter lays a theoretical foundation for the following two parts, which respectively introduce two formation pathways of the words. The author strives to raise awareness of translation theories beyond Europe and promotes the legitimacy of translingual words.

The author Jieun Kiaer is a Korean linguist who is currently the Associate Professor of Korean Language and Linguistics at the University of Oxford, UK. Kiaer’s research interests lie in theoretical linguistics, applied linguistics as well as Korean and East Asian linguistics. Before this book, Kiaer has published works in relevant fields, such as The History of English Loanwords in Korean (2014) and Hybrid Words in Korea and Japanese: A strange Brew or an Asset for Global English (2017). Based on previous research, this work expands the topics to East Asia. Familiar with both European and Asian culture, Kiaer gives down-to-earth examples of translingual words and analyzes them from linguistic, cultural and sociopolitical perspectives.

In terms of methodology, the online database Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is used as a criterion for tracing translingual words and defining their degree of fusion in English culture. The book also includes a large amount of content analysis of social media, such as how the words are used in the context of local culture, which also provides examples used in the book. Google Trends and Google N-gram are deployed for tracing the use of English words for both inner and outer English speakers.

 Basics of Translingual Words

The author considers terms like “borrowed words” or “loanwords” inappropriate given that English has a global identity and does not grant ownership to anyone. Therefore, Kiaer introduces and clarifies the definition of related terms, such as “foreign words,” “hybrid words,” “subcultural words” and “translingual words” in the four chapters of the first part. This is crucial because these terms are referred to throughout the book. Translingual words include the former three terms, and they can be English words in the form of Eastern languages or the romanization of Eastern languages.

Kiaer introduces the lexicon interaction model and the sunflower model to show how words’ meanings are negotiated and transformed between cultures, emphasizing the function of English as Lingua Franca (ELF). A large number of examples in Chinese, Korea and Japan are used to explain terms and theories. The author compares the translingual process of the three countries, revealing how socio-political and historic factors can affect the speed and way of lexical integration. Colonization was identified as the initiator of translanguaging, and words flow mainly from European countries to Asian countries in the earlier historical stage, though the distinction between foreign words and native words is blurred in the age of globalization and digitalization. According to ELF, the existence of hybrid words is justified since they are integrated into local culture (p. 20). This kind of words faces prejudice, though they are “an indispensable part of a multilingual society and may even be the greatest asset of our future lexicon” on the way to “a new world order in languages” (Graddol, 2006, p. 23) along with globalization. Subcultural words, the once considered short-lived words, are valued for allowing people of international backgrounds to communicate on the internet, especially in Japan and Korea, where non-English words enter the English lexicon despite the prejudice they receive in reality. Emoji is compared with translingual words since they both have shareability and semantic value.

 Words from East Asian to English Lexicon

As is mentioned above, translanguaging can be carried out in both directions, from East Asian to European, and vice versa. The second part of the book focuses on the analysis of East Asian words in English. The author starts from the history in the chapter “First Arrivals, ” then analyzes various media platforms with case studies to explore the settlement of the words and examines attitudes of the locals towards translingual words.

Kiaer sorts out the sequences of major historical and political stages that affect the process and differentiates degrees in which Chinese, Japanese and Korean enter the English lexicon. Graphs and statistics are used to demonstrate the difference in amount and categories of settled words from the three languages. Problems in defining East Asian words are carried out since most of them are of Sinitic origin, making it hard to categorize which one of the three countries the words come from. East Asian words’ popularization through Southeast Asian English is identified as a shortcut to translanguaging, but the author does not include a large number of ethnic Chinese as a possible explanation.

Content and data analysis in registers such as OED (dictionary), magazines and newspapers, and social media platforms are then used to discuss the settling patterns of the words. The three categories of media have incremental tolerance for translingual words. The author suggests that the conventional attitude of OED to translingual words should be shifted given that English is entering a “multilingual era” (p. 83). Case studies on The Times, New York Times, and The Economists show the life span and diverse preferences of Asian-born words in different press or countries. Social media platforms are where Asian words are treated as part of the English lexicon and used in daily life by the general public. Hashtags are used to trace the variation of Romanisations and the combination of the words. The former results from the unsmooth procedure (p. 89) and controversial pronunciation adaptation methods. Kiaer uses graphs to show the declining frequencies of “special treatment” (p. 93) to selected Asian words, which indicates their integration into the English lexicon in time.

To explore the effect of translinguism in the socio-linguistic field, the author takes a survey among British native university students and concludes that young British are open to translingual words and are more familiar with Japanese words. However, it should be noted that this result does not reflect the general attitude of young British, since education level may be a variable to openness to Asian words and culture.

 Words from English to East Asian Lexicon

The last part is about the existence of English words in East Asia. Kiaer introduces the directly imported words which closely link with history in the chapter, analyzes the formation mechanism and attitudes towards localized English words in the next chapter, and eventually identifies global words.

To analyze why and how the words are directly imported, the author introduces the linguistic landscape shift from Chinese (Sino-centric) to English in Korea and Japan, which results in the increasing familiarity of English rather than Chinese among citizens. Following Japan, Korea and China start to accept English as a language which brings in western culture and modernity. The expansion of the usage of words originated from English from science to genuine lexicon of daily life, from culture borrowing to westernization of local words can be observed and studied through media, where the author generalizes the way language usage pattern changes. Kiaer refers to survey results in Japan and Korea to conclude that the use of English words results simply from convenience with little prejudice towards the English words, though some scholars argue that the phenomenon reflects “flunkeyism towards the West” (Shin, 2009, p. 104). Linguistic experts believe it is beneficial for communication, though it raises awareness of the negative influence on the native lexicon.

Compared with Korea and Japan, China is much slower in exchanging lexicon with English words. Lexical exchanges are visible mainly on brand and shop names, in which semiotic values are adopted. The “non-sensical” (p. 134) use of English words in Taiwan is justified because of this. Kiaer refers to terms and theories in word-formation to explain the patterns of locally made word formation in Japanese and Korean as well as difficulties to hybrid Chinese with English. Four categories of global words are chosen for exploration and analysis: food words, fashion and cosmetic words, socio-cultural words and foreign branding. The author introduces their evolution and impact on the international lexicon, in which process the meaning of words expand.

The overall structure of the book is clear, presenting a complete view of the translanguaging phenomenon between the western and eastern worlds throughout history. The book shows the influence of history, politics, culture and language on each other, the fact that language is dynamic and is always negotiated by people, and forecasts the future trend of further translinguism. Terms and theories of linguistics are introduced with adequate frequency, plain explanation and examples, making the book both academic and friendly to newcomers. Nevertheless, the third part seems to be flooded with examples, making the logic harder to follow than previous chapters. The way of interpretation in this book respects the countries or regions mentioned in the book and the author puts the languages and their hybrid versions in equal positions. Kiaer sees the translingual process from a global view, which may result from her positive attitude towards translingual words, though it should be noted that the effect should be viewed more critically concerning its influence on local culture, education, and ideology. The book uses unsophisticated language to show research data and examples, which makes the book easily understood, even for those unfamiliar with Asian languages or without linguistic background.

References

Kiaer, J. (2019). Translingual Words: An East Asian Lexical Encounter with English (1st ed.). Routledge.

Kiaer, J. (2014). The history of English loanwords in Korean. Munich: LINCOM Europa.

Kiaer, J., & Bordilovskaya, A. (2017). Hybrid English words in Korean and Japanese: A strange brew or an asset for Global English? Asian Englishes, 19(2), 169–187.

Graddol, D. (2006). English Next (Vol. 62). London: British Council.

Shin, M.-S. (2009). The ‘Almighty English’ phenomenon in our era. Foreign Language Education Research, 12, 78–94.

Yi Xuan, Jia is currently finishing her bachelor’s degree at the University of Macau. Jia is especially enthusiastic about linguistics, cultural studies and education, where she wishes to continue her graduate studies.

 

Book Review: Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives edited by Olga Castro and Emek Ergun

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Publisher: Routledge. Date of Publication: 2017. Language: English. ISBN: 9780367365813

Reviewed by

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] John Chi Chon FONG [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]

Department of English, University of Macau, Macau

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–4. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.21

Received: 13 Sept 2021 | Accepted: 22 Oct 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This review is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Book Review: Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives edited by Olga Castro and Emek Ergun

Currently, there are hardly any works that explicitly claim the political title “feminist” or “activist” while fully exploring feminist translation. Without necessarily embracing and recognizing the transgressive or reactionary processes of translation in feminist movements and activisms, existing collections generally explore the “connections between gender and translation or women and translation” (p. 2). This essay collection suggests that the important role of translation in the trans/formation of feminist politics requires more analytical recognition. Hence, the authors put the “F word” back into the discussion in their chapters, focusing on the roles of translation in the development of feminisms.

The editors also claim that the recent Feminist Translation Studies (FTS) scholarship fails to reveal the current cross-cultural increased amount of attention given to feminist translation. They point out this gap “not only perpetuates the false impression that feminist translation is exclusively on and of the west, but also discourages further knowledge production on and of non-western realities by keeping new scholarship deterred or invisible” (p. 3). However, the book is still in English, and Europe and Anglo-America still take a large space in the collection. The very gap regarding FTS scholarship produced in non-hegemonic languages that they are criticizing remains a crucial one.

The essays collected in Olga Castro and Emek Ergun’s Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives seek both to address some major gaps in FTS and to inspire “the formation of new connections between translation studies, feminist theories, queer theory, linguistics, anthropology, postcolonial studies, history, philosophy, cultural studies, globalization studies, comparative literature and critical pedagogies” (p. 4). The essay collection is organized into three sections: Feminist Translation in Theory; Feminist Translation in Transition and Feminist Translation in Action. Theoretical frameworks in the feminist translation are the main focus in Section I, while case studies framed in different geohistorical contexts are detailed in Section III. The second section of this collection takes the form of a roundtable conversation that serves as a hinge and brings together seven leading scholars across disciplines as they discuss and share their opinions about what feminist politics of translation means to them.

As explained by the editors in the introduction, this collection is devoted to emphasizing the roles of translation in the making of the feminist transnational. They hope to re-envision “the future of the transnational as a polyphonic space where translation (as a feminist praxis) is embraced as a tool and model of cross-border dialogue, resistance, solidarity and activism in pursuit of justice and equality for all” (p. 1). In doing so, the editors argue for new, innovative feminist approaches to the study of translation in the era of transnational feminism.

The essays in Section I, “Feminist Translation in Theory”, propose inventive theoretical frameworks for feminist translation practice and study. José Santaemilia, in “A Corpus-Based Analysis of Terminology in Gender and Translation Research: The Case of Feminist Translation,” engages in a corpus analysis of the key terms used to define the field, focusing particularly on the usage and definition of “feminist translation” over the years. As Santaemilia put it, “in order to better understand where the field currently stands and is heading, we need a critical look at its key terms” (p. 6). The chapter presents an overview of the main concerns, debates, and current status of FTS in academia. In “Transnational Feminist Solidarities and the Ethics of Translation,” Damien Tissot draws on the philosophy of Paul Ricœur, Etienne Balibar, and Judith Butler. The author argues that, when conceived in translation, the universal can be a useful tool to achieve the project of politics and ethics of translation. Readers of this chapter will learn about what he calls “a feminist ethics of translation,” which sees translation as a way of “recognising and embracing the differences of the Other without fetishising them” (p. 6).

On the topic of English hegemony, María Reimóndez raises accusations that “an Anglo-Euro-centric epistemology is privileged over other kinds of knowledge” (p. 45), highlighting the shortcomings of the feminist translation praxis. The author proposes the notion of polyphony with references to Mikhail Bakhtin to argue that “the goal of feminist and postcolonial translation is to create a space for multiple voices to be heard” (p. 44). Similarly, Lola Sánchez, in her case study of the titles selected for publication in the Spanish book series Feminismos, reveals that while the presence of feminist knowledge/voices from other parts of the world is inexistent or scarce, most of the translated works are from countries with imperial powers (the US, the UK, France, Italy, and Germany).

Cornelia Möser, in “Gender Travelling across France, Germany and the US: The Feminist Gender Debates as Cultural Translations,” reconfigures translation “as a productive act of meaning-making … [that] undermines dichotomous gendered ideas about translation (when conceptualized as a copy, secondary and feminine), original (when conceptualized as authentic, primary and masculine) and nationality (that is conceptualized around claims of ‘authentic’ and ‘pure’)” (p. 80). The author analyzes the travels within feminist debates on “gender” in France, Germany and the US, exploring the productivity of translation. She also invokes scholars, such as Edward Said, Walter Benjamin, and Naoki Sakai, to emphasize the creative potential of translation for feminist knowledge production. The first section is concluded by Ergun and Castro’s chapter in which they present the theoretical framework behind their vision of feminist translation as a promising pedagogical tool and explain how it can be practised in different courses that aim to promote equality and help students appreciate differences.

The second section of the collection is a cross-disciplinary roundtable chapter where seven prominent feminist scholars—Richa Nagar, Kathy Davis, Judith Butler, AnaLouise Keating, Claudia de Lima Costa, Sonia E. Alvarez and Ay?e Gül Alt?nay—engage in a discussion about a variety of issues linked to the feminist politics of translation. This chapter demonstrates the rich epistemic potential of interdisciplinary studies and conversations on feminist translation. The participants explore the essential role of translation in the development and success of transnational feminist activism. As Butler states, “there can be no solidarity without translation, and certainly no global solidarity” (p. 113).

The book’s third section opens with Justine M. Pas and Magdalena J. Zaborowska’s essay, where the authors analyze the feminist translation strategies used in English translations of interviews conducted in Polish, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil, and Hindi for the Global Feminisms project (GFP), an oral history project initiated at the University of Michigan, the US. The chapter illustrates how GFP’s translational strategies help explain to the readers the complexity, diversity, and legitimacy of international feminisms. In the next chapter, Annarita Taronna studies Italian writer Joyce Lussu’s activist translations and her intersectional feminism. Taronna discusses how Lussu has challenged the prescriptive translation norms with her translation method. In Lussu’s translations, concerns of local and global equality and justice prevail over preoccupations with “faithful” linguistic transfer.

In “Donne è bello and the Role of Translation in the Migration of ‘Consciousness-Raising’ from the US to Italy,” Elena Basilio presents an analysis of “Un programma per le femministe: prender coscienza” which was published in Donne è bello—a 1972 volume comprising a selection of translated essays of US-American radical feminists by the Italian feminist collective “Anabasi”. This chapter underlines the important role played by translation and translators’ strategies in the diffusion of radical feminist practices from the US to Italy. Similarly, focusing on the cross-border travels of feminist theories, Sergi Mainer contextualizes the historical and geopolitical development of anarcha-feminism and translation from Germany to Spain.

Rebecca S. Robinson, in her essay, attempts to explore how movements, such as SlutWalk, translated into other receiving cultures by examining the Moroccan case. The author focuses particularly on the translation of its controversial use of “slut” in the title of their campaign. In doing so, this chapter proves the dialogic power of translation and that SlutWalk was transplanted in Morocco to trigger public debates about street harassment and related gender norms. In “The Translator and the Transgressive: Encountering Sexual Alterity in Catherine Millet’s La vie sexuelle de Catherine M.,” Pauline Henry-Tierney highlights the relevance of feminist translator. Henry-Tierney’s analysis explains the subjective transformative experiences of the feminist translator by employing theoretical concepts devised by thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler. In the final chapter, Serena Bassi examines the Italian localization of the US-based “It Gets Better” (IGB) campaign. The chapter offers practical lessons for students of translation to rethink translation as a form of activism to construct their own identities.

The essays in “Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives” set out to be a major contribution to the field of Feminist Translation Studies. The diversity of voices and visions expands the definition of feminist translation from the conventional framing to a more intersectional one. The information covered in this volume provides the student of translation studies some additional and welcome relief to feminist theories and practices, enlarging their focus of feminist politics beyond a gender-only agenda. The volume will no doubt be valuable to those relatively new to FTS, as it provides innovative models and insights that are vital in the study of translation in the era of transnational feminism. This collection of essays is indeed a useful reference book for FTS.

Reference

Castro, O., & Ergun, E. (2017). Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives. Routledge.

Author’s bio-note

John Chi Chon FONG obtained his B.A. in English Studies from the University of Macau where he worked as a Research Assistant over the summer. His research interests include feminist translation, gender and language.

Book Review: Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration by Carlos M. Piocos III

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Publisher: Routledge. Date of Publication: 2021. Language: English. ISBN: 9780367279165

Reviewed by

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Jose Kervin Cesar B. Calabias [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]

Department of Cultural Studies,  Lingnan University

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.19

Received: 27 April 2021 | Revised: 22 Oct 2021 | Accepted: 22 Oct 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This review is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
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Book Review: Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration by Carlos M. Piocos III

Carlos Piocos’s ground-breaking book, Affect, Narratives and Politics of Southeast Asian Migration published earlier this year by Routledge, provides an in-depth analysis of the intimate labour(ed) landscape of Filipina and Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong and Singapore, and how their (im)mobilities are not just hastened and aggravated by the neoliberal framework of global labor and the policies of their sending and receiving nation-states, but also in terms of the emotionality that circulates within the global care chains network. Piocos specifically turns our attention to the “felt” politics that emanate from films and fictions of and by Southeast Asian migrant workers and how these cultural productions create an affective economy that, according to him, is not just “sticky” as feminist critic Sarah Ahmed describes, but demonstrates varying viscosities of “thickening and thinning out,” reflecting a “messiness” of feelings that do not necessarily coalesce in these texts (p. 10).

The author tracts the unevenness of affect within the textual tropes of “belonging and displacement, shame and desire, vulnerability and victimization, and their sacrifices for their home and homeland” (p. 5) that are imbricated in the featured migrant print and visual media; Xyza Cruz Bacani’s photographs in her book, We are Like Air; the short stories of Indonesian migrant worker-writers, Susie Utomo, Erfa Handayani, Maria Bo Niok, Tiwi, Juwanna, Susana Nisa, Arista Devi, Indira Margareta and Etik Juwita; the novels Soledad’s Sister by Jose Dalisay and Sebongkah Tanah Retak (A Lump of Cracked Land) by Rida Fitria; the films Remittance by Patrick Daly and Joel Fendelman, Anthony Chen’s Ilo Ilo, Still Human by Oliver Chan Siu-Kuen, and from Filipino directors Mes de Guzman and Zig Madamba Dulay, Balikbayan Box and Bagahe, respectively; and migrant documentaries Mengusahakan Cinta (Effort for Love) by Ani Ema Susanti and Sunday Beauty Queen by Baby Ruth Villarama. These are structured into five chapters that illustrate the landscape and politics of migrant “feelings.” While each chapter focuses on a certain affect(s), these chapters “affect” each other by consciously aligning the discussions to connect structurally and emotionally. In this way, migrant feelings emanating from these cultural productions are not discrete emotional categories but are thickening and thinning out beyond the generic constraint and, by extension, permeating within the actual spaces and bodies of domestic migration in both countries. The analysis drawn across generic and formal considerations shows that “border crossing” among migrants does not just happen geographically but extends to the genres of migrant cultural production from which this “rhizomatic” quality merits equal attention. Piocos interfaces his close reading of these texts against the wider discourses impinging Southeast Asian migrant labour and how the affects teased out from these texts influence government “mood” and policy on domestic migration (such as in the featured opinions of Indonesian president Joko Widodo, former Philippine president Ninoy Aquino, and Hong Kong legislator, Regina Ip), reinforce or negate popular representations of migrant labourers, and ultimately show how the interiority of feelings can be harnessed to affect the on-going political movements and struggles of migrant workers in Singapore and Hong Kong. All these shows what Piocos argues as the migrant affective economy where these cultural productions and representations or “viral texts” (p. 156) are reiterated, reproduced, consumed, and/or repudiated by Filipina and Indonesian migrant labourers alongside the precarious narratives and politics of their supposed national heroism as bagong bayani or pahlawan devisa. From alienation and belonging discussed in the first chapter down to grief and/in anger, the book shows not just a spectrum of emotions and feelings, but the journey of migrant political identification that ends in the hopeful note of resistance borne by the on-going transnational migrant labour rights movement shaped and buoyed by an array of migrant affect, proving how “literary and visual texts can take on the political task of affecting a social movement” (Piocos, 2021, p. 167). In this way, Piocos highlights agency in the immobility of migrants by showing how these women subvert their precarious conditions through movement itself.

Overall, the strength of this book is not just how it pioneers the affective turn within migration and migrant studies that are classed, gendered, and racialized in predominant scholarly analyses and activisms, but how Piocos steers this intersection to account for the “thickening of emotionality” as migrant remittances accrue in nation-states whose coffers are bellied by their suffering. Begging the question, how do we turn suffering into empowerment? And while it sounds unfortunate that migrants need to be subordinated to come into the agency, this paradoxical, albeit violent, relationship is precisely what makes emotions, feelings, and subjectivities complex and therefore cannot be decoupled from the migrant subject formation. Non-representational theories such as affect and how Piocos highlights how cultural productions are “aesthetic mediations and political interventions” (p. 6) show how upward social mobility and/or migrant political struggle require fluid motions of emotional negotiations found in the interstices of being accepted in the home/host country against knowing one’s “place,” being allowed certain intimacies while wholeheartedly accepting exclusion, and accepting sacrifice as a necessary catalyst for radical change, all illustrated by the fictions and films featured in this book. Ultimately, this shows how emotionality and the viscosity from which it moves migrants are not just ambivalent, dichotomized, or even dialectically opposing but are contronymic, which is to say how these presumably subordinated, negative feelings of alienation, sexual othering, and sacrificial motherhood are understood to be the necessary affective drives to claim or arrive at positive migrant agency.

However, while there remains so much more to say about what this book can potentially “affect” in terms of migrant scholarship, it has ironically shown a minor shortcoming in what it has chosen to privilege. The cultural productions of fiction and film featured by Piocos in this book leave out the dynamism of the everydayness of lived “emotionality.” And there are clear opportunities from which this book could have benefitted from the equally “thick” description from ethnographic data such as the author mentioning his engagement with his network of Filipina and Indonesian domestics in his “Sunday group” from his stay in Hong Kong from 2012-2016 (p. 156) that informed much of his own “feelings” and textual analyses. It would have been equally fascinating if the researcher’s own ethnographic notes from this immersion or certain interviews conducted by him with these migrants as both subject and creator of these featured texts would have been included in the shaping of affect. While this book’s success can also be attributed to its material density where Piocos has analyzed 19 “texts” in total, the potential to further the affective through ethnographic detail remains. Arguably, emotions are made to be “trackable” within the curated frames and borders of these films and fictions, revealing how emotions can sometimes be predicated on or affected by the prevailing standard, rules, and/or conventions of a given genre, and this leaves the readers wanting to know more how they can observe and/or apprehend migrant emotions as actual lived experiences, vocabularies, and gestures in the field.

Perhaps the book’s possibilities can be an opportunity for scholars of varying levels of academic career to use this book not just as an illuminating introduction to Southeast Asian migration, affect theory, and emergent migrant fiction and film but as a field guide in ethnographic studies as well. As I write this review, I am also immersed in my own ethnographic work among Filipina migrant workers in Hong Kong and I can see how this book opens the possibility of tracking and apprehending these felt politics as gestures, discourses, and emotions that unfold and circulate in the field. This book also engages with critical ethnographic concerns such as adapting a certain sensitivity in decoupling our interlocutors from their perceived subordinate status and disengaging ourselves from the paternalistic intentions of well-meaning research for and about Southeast Asian migrants, and where the book’s resounding recognition of hope in migrant political movements can help ethnographic researches document a more nuanced migrant agency.

Reference

Piocos, C. M. (2021). Affect, narratives and politics of Southeast Asian migration. Routledge.

Jose Kervin Cesar B. Calabias is an Igorot Kankana-ey scholar from Baguio City, Philippines. He holds a BA and MA in Language and Literature from the University of the Philippines, and he is currently a PhD candidate of the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong where he is a recipient of the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme and the Belt and Road Scholarship awards. Before commencing his fellowship, he taught courses on literature and arts at De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines.

Spatial Imaginings in the Age of Colonial Cartographic Reason: Maps, Landscapes, Travelogues in Britain and India by Nilanjana Mukherjee

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332 views

London and New York: Routledge, 2021, xiii+300 pp., $160.00 (hardbound), ISBN 9780367749583

Sutapa Dutta

Gargi College, University of Delhi. Email:  sdutta.eng@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.25

Nilanjana Mukherjee’s book looks at construction of space, leading from imaginative to concrete contours, within the context of the British imperial enterprise in India. Fundamental to her argument is that colonial definitions of sovereignty were defined in terms of control over space and not just over people, and hence it was first necessary to map the space and inscribe symbols into it. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, imperialism and colonization were complex phenomena that involved new and imminent strategies of nation building. No other period of British history, as Linda Colley has noted, has seen such a conscious attempt to construct a national state and national identity (Colley 1992). Although the physical occupation of India by the British East India Company could be said to have begun with the battle of Plassey (1757), nevertheless the process of conquest through mediation of symbolic forms indicate the time and manner in which the ‘conquest’ was conscripted. Full-Text PDF>>

The Nineteenth Century Revis(it)ed: The New Historical Fiction by Ina Bergmann

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256 views

New York: Routledge.  2021. ISBN: 978-0-367-63466-7 (hbk), 978-1-003-12807-6 (ebk)

Prashant Maurya

Senior Research Fellow, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India – 247667. Email: prashantlinguistics@gmail.com

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.24

The nineteenth century is a crucial phase in America’s history. Key features such as geographical expansions, the industrial revolution, development in science and technology, and America’s emergence as a super power, after the American Revolution and the War of 1812, mark the century. The Civil War becomes the most important historical event of this phase that will impact the lives of Americans in the years to come. The century has literary importance also because, during this phase, forerunners of American literature, like, Edgar Allen Poe, James Cooper, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, etc., come to the scene. Thus, the century as the setting has always been a literary choice for historical novelists.  Full-Text PDF>>

Writing and Space: Writing the City by Stuti Khanna

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Orient Blackswan. 2020. pp.114, Rs. 750 (Paperback). ISBN: 9789352879229

Urvashi Kaushal

Assistant Professor, SVNIT, Surat, Gujarat. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6774-6849. Email: k.urvashi@amhd.svnit.ac.in

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.23

Writing the City, a collection of essays edited by Stuti Khanna is a noteworthy publication as it includes 13 engaging essays by critically acclaimed contemporary mostly Indian writer. The book has an attractive cover with an infographic map of cities — the theme around which Khanna assembles this collection. This book with only 114 pages can be a treasure trove for researchers of the contemporary Indian writing as “it explores the symbiotic relationship between form and content” (Khanna, 2020, p. xi) as each of these 13 writers present in their introspective mood, “the relationship of their writing to place and space” (Khanna, 2020, p.xi) of their upbringing. Hence, the apt title, Writing the City. The book validates Tim Creswell and other Humanist Geographer’s reverberations that: “Place is the raw material for the creative production for identity” (Cresswell, 2004, p.39). Full-Text PDF>>

An Introduction to Indian Aesthetics: History, Theory, and Theoreticians by Mini Chandran and Sreenath V. S.

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Bloomsbury India. 2021. pp. 2308, £76.50 / ISBN: 9789389165135

Prabha Shankar Dwivedi

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Tirupati. Email: prabhas.dwivedi@iittp.ac.in

Volume 13, Number 4, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n4.21

This book can be seen as a response to a severe demand in the field of Indian poetics for an introductory book that provides an overview of all the seminal schools of Indian poetical thoughts, keeping in view both the theories and the theoreticians. This book, in the words of authors, is meant to be “An introduction to the world of Sanskrit poetics, explaining its major concepts lucidly for even those who do not know Sanskrit. It offers a comprehensive historical and conceptual overview of all the major schools in Sanskrit poetics…. It is meant to be a beginners’ guide to the awe-inspiring immensity of Sanskrit literature and literary thought, the first step in a journey that should ideally lead to the profundities of ancient thought.” (Chandran et al 2021, p. xii). The discussion in the book progresses with varied theoretical perspectives on Indian aesthetics in a well laid historico-conceptual order. Though the book briefly talks about Tamil poetics putting it parallel to Sanskrit poetics by comparing Tolk?ppiyam with N??ya??stra in the preface, it primarily serves to be an introductory handbook of Sanskrit poetics for the non-Sanskrit University students at various levels. This book succeeds in providing clearer idea of Indian poetical thoughts to its readers. Full-Text PDF>>

Review Article: Dalit Literature and Criticism by Raj Kumar

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755 views

Publisher: Orient BlackSwan
Year of Publication: 2019
ISBN:978-93-5287-532-0

Reviewed by
Dr. Shahida
Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, NIT Kurukshetra. Email: shahida2709@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.27r

Extract

The term ‘Dalit’ refers to a particular group or community in India which have been ostracized, exploited and humiliated due caste structure and social order ardently followed in India. The etymology of the word ‘Dalit’ can be traced to the root word dal in Sanskrit and dalan in Hindi meaning ‘broken down’ or ‘broken to pieces.’ It is believed that Jotibarao Phule (1826-90) first used the term to describe condition of outcastes and untouchables in India. Later, the term was popularized by B.R. Ambedkar as he used it profusely in his speeches and writings in Marathi. The term gained new meaning in 1970s, a period of literary and cultural boom that witnessed the birth of Dalit literature and in the present, the term refers to belated recognition of the Dalit’s militant claims upon a history of humiliation and suffering (Rao, 11).

Since its origin Dalit Literature has emerged as a form of social resistance literature principally aimed at community identity formation and bringing about political and economic changes among the Dalit population. Arjun Dangle, the Marathi Dalit writer, editor and activist suggests, “Dalit literature is marked by revolt and negativism, since it is closely associated with the hopes for freedom by a group of people, who as untouchables, are victims of social, economic and cultural inequality” (Trans. Mukhherjee; 1). Dangle traces the origin of Dalit literature to Ambedkar. It was his revolutionary ideas that encouraged Dalits to speak for themselves and therefore Dalit literature is an expression of this self- awareness; an assertion for a dignified life.

Review Article on A Fragmented Feminism: The Life and Letters of Anandibai Joshee By Meera Kosambi, Ram Ramaswamy, Madhavi Kolhatkar & Aban Mukherji

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300 views

ISBN 9780367463892

Published August 29, 2019 by Routledge India

280 Pages 33 B/W Illustrations

Reviewed by

Niranjana G1 & Bhuvaneswari2

1Research Scholar, VIT Chennai.  Email: niranjjan87@gmail.com

2Assistant Professor, VIT Chennai

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.26r

 [Updated on October 27, 2021]

‘A Fragmented Feminism THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ANANDIBAI JOSHEE’ is the seminal work on social history about the first woman doctor of India, Anandibai Gopal Joshee written by the sociologist Meera Kosambi and Edited by Ram Ramaswamy, Madhavi Kolhatkar and Aban Mukherji. It provides insight into the psychosocial impacts of culture on Indian women through the life of Dr. Anandibai Gopal Joshee, India’s first women doctor.

The author collected the letters written by Anandibai, newspaper reports on her, her poems in Marathi and rare photographs of her to craft the biography of her life. This book resembles an epistolary style in its narrative quality accompanied by annotations and explanations by the author and Editors. Anandibai, who was graduated in western medicine at America, lived during the nineteenth century pre-independence India where access to basic education was a distant dream. This book stands as a witness to practices of child marriage, physical and emotional abusement on women. (Kosambi, 19)

‘In childhood the mind is immature and the body undeveloped. And you know how I acted on these occasions. If I had left, you at that immature age, as you kept on suggesting, what would have happened? (And any number of girls have left their homes because of harassment from mothers-in-law and husbands). I did not do so because I was afraid that my ill-considered behaviour would tarnish my father’s honour… And I requested you not to spare me, but to kill me. In out society, for centuries there has been no legal barrier between husband and wives; and if it exists, it works against women! Such being the vase, I had no recourse but to allow you to hit me with chairs and bear it with equanimity. A Hindu woman has not right to utter a word or to advise her husband. On the contrary she has right to allow her husband to do what he wishes and to keep quiet.’

The setting sprawls in a landscape where the women identified themselves as the Other of Men and fully dependent on Men for their existence. Despite the continuous harassment and physical abusement, Anandibai successfully achieved her dream of becoming a doctor. This book is a foreword to Indian feminist movement.

The first part of the book is concerned with early life of Anandibai, her American connection, and life at Calcutta and Serampore. The earlier works on Anandi Bai Joshee portrays her husband as a great reformer and camouflaged the hegemonical practices underplay, all the while defending the patriarchal politics in representing Anandibai in the world stage, but this book underscores the politics behind her representation and questions the legitimization process through which Anandibai is represented.

Pre-pubertal Marriages (child marriage) were predominant during that time consequently, infant mortality rate was also high which affected the gynaecological health of women. This book delineates the effect of child marriage and rigorous religious customs of Hindus Brahmanical society on women. Although, the access to basic education was a great deal for women those days except for the missionary schools, Anandibai finished her basic education in language and arts without proper schooling. The author and Editors greatly emphasize the emergence of the New World and its offerings to civilize the otherwise uncivilized third world countries of the world in Anandibai’s correspondences with Mrs.Carpernter.

The second part of the book deals with her passage to America, stay at Carpenters, health issues and struggles at completing her medical graduation. Multiple offers from reputed universities is a great preamble for recognition of Indian women’s talent and potential in the world stage. The growing and fragmented consciousness of Anandibai is evident in her letters as internal conflicts between Hindu and American way of life and from the disagreements with her husband. This book acts as an interface to the inner self of a woman who was contesting the equations of culture and education. (Kosambi, 173)

‘I feel grieved at your habit of misinterpreting things. I did not at all mean to, even wish to, say that you treat me badly. I have only written about the excessive criticism Govindaro made of my having forgotten Marathi.’

The third part of the book talks about her brief voyage back to India and humiliations in the ship, which is the surviving proof for imperialistic monstrosities on Indian people. The author and editors substantiated Anandibai’s letters with the reports from the acclaimed newspapers “The Mahratta” and “The Kesari” about her life.

Early marriage and pregnancy, fasting and poor eating habits crushed her dreams of serving the country and emancipate fellow women. She drearily performed the role of gender and religion-imposed duties in the name of cultural codes. The culture, which was supposed to emancipate and legitimise, hampered her growth by naturalize and represent her as Indian women. There are accounts of life of Pandita Ramabai in the book, who was projected as a foil to Anandibai in the media during that time.

This book is the testimony for child marriage, child abusement, woman abusement, and subjugation in the name of religious practices and colonial violence. The entire nation was under subjugation, but women were dually subjugated under the colonial powers and Patriarchy. Anandibai’s life is the metaphor for evils of Indian society on women. The influence of culture, patriarchal practices, and Indian code of conduct over Anandibai is clearly captured in her own words of correspondence.

The Editors tried to chronologically arrange the letters to better project the life of Anandibai but could not accomplish it. Even though, there are narrative interferences with letters and anecdotes from Anandibai’s friends, the story is not lost in its entirety. The title, ‘Fragmented Feminism’ aptly denotes the fractured feminist consciousness in Anandibai, and the cultural factors obstructed her road to realisation. This revival of interest in re-publishing the life of Anandibai through her own words inspires all the Indian women seeking agency in social, domestic, economical, and political spheres.

References:

Kosambi, Meera. ‘A Fragmented Feminism THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ANANDIBAI JOSHEE’. Edited by Ram Ramaswamy, Madhavi Kolhatkar and Aban Mukherji. Routledge, 29 August 2019.

Butler, Judith, “Gender Trouble.” Routledge Classics, 2016.

Chakravarti, Uma. ‘Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens.’ SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd, 15 October 2018.

John, E, Mary. ‘Women’s studies in India: A Reader.’ Penguin India 25 August 2008.

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