Alter/Asians: Asian-Australian Identities in Art, Media and Popular Culture

By Ien Ang Sharon Chalmers Lisa Law And Mandy Thomas, Sydney: Pluto Press, 2000, 323 pages, paperback, $32.95. Reviewed by Tseen Khoo in the September 2001 issue.

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This collection of essays, edited by academics from the Research Centre for Intercommunal Studies (now part of the Institute for Cultural Research), originated with the 1999 conference 'Alter/Asians.' The conference marked the coming together of various disciplinary fields within the nascent area of 'Asian-Australian studies.' There is no doubt that this area has piqued the research interests of a wide range of academics and the recent critical forums of dedicated conferences and essay collections have lent this disciplinary development momentum.Alter/Asians was an ambitious conference which has now become a similarly challenging book of essays. The three parts of the book address 'Asian/Australian Identities', 'Literature/Art Performance,' and 'Popular Culture and Media' respectively. The strength of this critical collection lies in the variety of disciplines represented and in the numbers of innovative critiques focused on new Asian/Australian texts and contexts. Contributors include many well-known 'pioneers' of research into Asian-Australian cultural production. One of the editors, Ien Ang, is a prominent Australian critic on the subjects of Asian diaspora and Asian-Australian cultural studies. Her introduction articulates succinctly the shape of contemporary Australian culture and the place of Asian-Australian creative and political issues in that culture. Ang addresses the issues of diaspora and nationalism by pointing out that the:

representation of Asians 'here' is inextricably linked to that of Asia 'there,' making porous the boundaries between 'Asia' and 'Australia' and unsettling the reassuring separateness of the nation-state as a distinct and self-enclosed cultural entity. (p xx)

There is no doubt that Asian-Australian and Asia/Australia studies interrogate and disrupt (or abandon) traditional modes of conceiving 'nation,' often heading for the greener, hipper fields of diasporic, transnational, or intercultural studies. However, opportunities for Asian-Australian intervention in established areas like Australian and multicultural studies should not be neglected. Establishing a profile in these more recognised disciplines can only complement the development of further research into Asian-Australian concerns.

Previously dominated by sociological and demographic data, the book's new perspectives on Asian experiences in Australia draw as well from the creative arts, literature, popular culture, and media studies. Alter/Asians offers Suvendrini Perera on the issue of Australian 'coexistence' with indigenous communities and the possibilities of shifting linear modes of conceptualising nation and Julie Matthews on the politics of racialised images. Recent community research also features with Devleena Gosh's work with the Sydney Indo-Fijian community and how notions of 'home' are constructed in Australia. Matching Gosh's article is Allan and Carmen Luke's investigation into language maintenance in families of inter-ethnic marriage.

This first section is followed by papers on Wenche Ommundsen's examination of the new 'Tiananmen Square' generation of Chinese-Australian writers, hybridity in Asian-Australian theatre (Jacqueline Lode lineating her argument of looking 'beyond happy hybridity' (p152) and how anti-Asian performance is reflected in as how which examines Australia's obsession with sport (Rachel Fensham). This section also presents contributions which highlight Asian-Australian visual arts concerns with Yiyan Wang's case studies of two Chinese-Australian artists (Shen Jiawei and Guan Wei), Melissa Chiu's examination of the politics of Asia/Australia art exhibitions, and Dean Chan's analysis of the way in which Asian-Australian visual art is perceived by reviewers and critics (in particular, William Yang's slide-shows Sadness and The North).

The third and last part of the collection is populated by essays which fall mostly within the 'Asia in Australia' and 'Australia in Asia' categories. The confusion for Australia of whether it has a place in 'Asia' and the cross-cultural influences of our nation's closest neighbours gives rise to essays which perform critiques of popular cultural transfer and representation. Media industry issues are covered by Gay Hawkins's piece about the fuss at SBS over the targetting of 'consumers of difference' (p 234), ostensibly at the expense of its traditional 'highbrow' audience; Andrew Jakubowicz and Rod Palmer examine the response of the Australian media to Suharto's downfall and Indonesia's unrest, concluding their article with a not-so-rhetorical question about the need for Australians to view themselves as 'standard bearers of white European civilisation on the edge of darkness' (p 262); and, with a different spin, Denise Woods tackles the representation of Australia's 'deviant' Hansonite politics in the South East Asian media. This last section also includes a cluster of articles about the ways in which communities consume popular culture, from Tony Mitchell's observations of cultural interchange, to Craig Norris's nvestigation of the fan-base for Japanese anime in Australia, to Mandy Thomas's study which emphasises the complexity of exporting culture, particularly to diasporic communities, and the ways in which some items are altered for consumption 'off-shore.'

Overall, the collection offers vibrant, stimulating perspectives from the relatively 'young' discipline of Asian-Australian studies, as well as innovative approaches tomore established issues of Asian/Australian cultural traffic. Chan concludes his article 'The Dim Sum vs the Meat Pie':

An alertness to the perpetuation of old myths, stereotypes and cultural idealisations at work in much current discussions nevertheless remains very much at issue. Such critical attentiveness is finally not just a simple question of splitting semantic hairs; it is hinged on the political necessity of moving beyond mere face value. (p 151)

Research and publication in the area of Asian-Australian and Asia/Australia studies is rich and increasingly dynamic. The book's focus on cultural production balances fresh perspectives on sociological/demographic work with Asian-Australian communities. It is one of the key publications which will influence the shape of Asian-Australian Studies in the next few years.

Citation

• Tseen Khoo. 'Review: Alter/Asians: Asian-Australian Identities in Art, Media and Popular Culture by Ien Ang Sharon Chalmers Lisa Law and Mandy Thomas' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), September 2001. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 06 September 2010].

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