Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

xixOVERVIEWCzarina Saloma-Akpedonu, Workshop Director6 th Workshop of the API Fellowships ProgramENCOUNTERS OF ASIAN TRANSFORMATIONS:VARIATIONS ON THE THEMEThe papers in this collection carry an important andcentral agenda: to understand the social transformationsin Asia as these are taking place. Like the sociologistBruno Latour who proposes that one should “studyscience in action and not ready-made science,” the2006/2007 API Fellows studied social and culturaltransformations in-the-making and by doing so couldarrive at an understanding before these become facts,blackboxed and taken for granted.In the study of Asian metamorphosis, Latour’s ideameans investigating and analyzing the social conditionsfrom which transformative actions emerge, the mediumand practices of social transformation and the outcomeswhich both constitute and reproduce the conditionsand structures bearing such actions. Such is the natureof the perpetual metamorphosis of Asia.API Fellows are able to study social and culturaltransformations in action by having the privilege ofobserving, reflecting on and analyzing Asian societiesfor a prolonged period of time. This period of time,which allows a space for cultivating both knowledge forunderstanding and knowledge for action, is becomingrare in an age of speed and multiple tasking. The bodyof knowledge and insights that API Fellows collectivelybuild is refined by the comparative optics of viewingone’s own society in relation to another and vice versa,since they study a society other than their own. 1Each paper sheds light, on a continuum of degreesof focus, on the contexts and processes of socialtransformations in Asia, and on the origins andconsequences of these transformations as they are takingplace. These transformations may happen graduallyas society and its various parts constantly search forequilibrium. At other times, transformations occurin the form of contestations and tensions that suggestuneven and partial outcomes. Two sets of works by APIFellows can be viewed as offering an insight into thenature and dynamics of the circles of power and thegreat portion of goodwill residing in society. Anotherset can be regarded as contributing to the understandingof the dynamics of social transformations, particularlythe intermingling of continuity and discontinuity,the blurring or reintegration of boundaries, and therefiguring of identities and futures. Finally, there is a setof works that can be considered as collages of bettermentand the specificities of globalization. 2Circles of power and counterbalancesThe different types of social honor that society bestowsto different groups of people hint that more people ofdiversified backgrounds can participate in the traditionalspheres of power—politics, religion and economy. AkikoMorishita’s examination of the political longevity of theChief Minister of a Malaysian state shows one exampleof how political and economic power is bestowed bysociety and how the political culture perpetuates thegrasp of those who lay hold of power and impedes theascent of others into circles of power.Ayame Suzuki’s study on the rise and fall of oppositionforces in Malaysia illustrates how influential individualsfrom the professional, educational, cultural and religioussectors can potentially counterbalance the dominanteconomic and political elite. She highlights a new aspectof counterbalancing, achieved by engendering theperception that legal boundaries have not been pushedand that deliberative channels for interest articulationexist, which resulted in some members of the oppositionnot remaining opposed to the government.In his engagement of a sample of Muslim and non-Muslim interpretations of Islam’s place in politics inMalaysia, Kamaruzzaman Bustamam-Ahmad suggeststhat definitions of rights and laws by the political elitemust take into account the interpretations of thosefor whom it speaks. He shows how an appreciation ofthese differences is vital to understanding the fractiousdebates about the nature of the secular state and theIslamic state.Persistent problems, promising solutions andbeneficencePersistent problems of poverty and social inequalityhave generated promising solutions. Josie M. FernandezAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows