Asia from Down Under: Regionalism and Global Cultural Change

Wertheim Lecture 2008 by prof. dr. Ien Ang (University of Western Sydney)

Globalisation has seen nation-states increasingly align themselves into regional blocs, perhaps the most prominent of which is the European Union. The formation of such transnational regions is based on geographical proximity and shared economic and political interests, but the very idea of a region, such as 'Europe', is underpinned by strongly held notions of cultural affinity. It is often cultural arguments and discourses - pertaining to identity, civilisation, religion, even race - that determine regional inclusion and exclusion.

What does this mean for a country such as Australia and its place within (or outside of) the Asian region? As a Western nation-state in an overwhelmingly non-Western region, Australia holds a prime position for observing processes of global cultural change in a time when Asia - home of the two new economic powerhouses of China and India and of the world's largest Muslim nation, Indonesia - is set to become the centre of the global force field. Australia's complex and ambivalent relationship with Asia provides valuable insight, particularly for Western Europe, into the cultural manifestations of the gradual decentring of the West.

Ien Ang is Distinguished Professor of Cultural Studies and Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney. She holds a doctorate from the University of Amsterdam, where she studied and worked from 1973 until 1990. She is the author of a number of books including Watching Dallas (1985), Desperately Seeking the Audience (1991), Living Room Wars (1996) and On Not Speaking Chinese (2001).

The Wertheim lecture is jointly organised by Asian Studies in Amsterdam (ASiA), the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR) and the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS).