Asian Visual Cultures. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018. 241 pp. (B&W photos) €85,00, cloth. ISBN 978-94-6298-112-6.
Globalization and Modernity in Asia examines and implicates public cultural performances, “performance[s] of the modernized self” (12), and “performances of the global” (12) in the creation of new social imaginaries in an inescapably interconnected and cosmopolitanized contemporary Asia. Editors Chris Hudson and Bart Barendregt gather leading scholars—with many recognizable names in theatre studies—to examine a “new Asian modernity” through the lens of the arts and performance, in which the “convergence and dialectical interplay between the global and the national is a key feature” (18). Following this, the authors investigate performances in specific Asian countries to demonstrate “how artistic and aesthetic interventions might generate a social imaginary in which the local can be transformed by the global and in which the problematics of both domains may be investigated” (14).
The book engages performance in a broad spectrum fashion and the authors examine a wide range of performance modalities (and modes of performativity): Craig Latrell looks at weddings, yoga, and the gay hook-up app “Grindr” as they co-define Bali’s identity; Peter Eckersall examines theatre and artworks that are set in Japanese convenience stores (konbini) to posit the view of a Japanese modernity entrenched in comforting alienation; Leonie Schmidt considers the aesthetics and politics of contemporary Indonesian performance art; Chua Beng Huat cites a controversial documentary about communists in Singapore; Tania Lewis deliberates on the issue of recognizable figures of expertise in Indian television that have now assumed the role of cultural gurus; William Peterson studies the performance of Filipino identity as evidenced in the 2010 Shanghai International Exposition; Chris Hudson discusses the impact of grobak (an Indonesian food cart) on the streets of Melbourne and the third spaces these create; Bart Barendregt examines Islamist flash mobs on the streets of Shah Alam as exemplification of Malaysia in a time of precarity; Jeroen de Kloet explores sanitized modernities in Chinese cinemas with three popular romantic movies; and Barbara Hatley analyzes Rimini Protokol’s 100% staged in Yogyakarta, Indonesia with this theatre project exposing social divisions in the “city of tolerance” (217).
The authors provide perceptive and provocative analyses as well as intriguing discussions of performance examples that are not frequently recognized to exemplify how modernity in Asia must be considered in the plural (what Hudson and Barendregt term “multiple” or “alternative” modernities). The chapters reveal how the persistence of history and tradition, cultural and/or religious specifics, contribute to the complexity of contemporary globalized identities and identity politics in Asia; they prove how the local moulds the global even as the global and its attending forces constitute the local.
It is the editors’ intentions to not limit discussions to theatrical performances, theatre artistry, or theatricality, and to embrace “discursive performativities, public spectacle, and embodied performance” (14). This is certainly a hallmark of the work, and the methodology allows for expansive, diverse, and rich analyses. But it is also due to the broad-spectrum approach of activities that leaves me desiring a more consonant focus, especially when compared to more recent works of a similar concern: Varney, Eckersall, and Hudson’s Theatre and Performance in the Asia-Pacific (2013); Rogers’ Performing Asian Transnationalisms (2014); and Tuan and Chang’s Transnational Performance, Identity, and Mobility in Asia (2018) are some examples. With the “performative turn,” it has also become commonplace to employ terms such as performance and performativity in a casual fashion. While the editors do delineate these concepts in the introductory chapter, the analyses of performance are not always consistent: Chua’s chapter for example, an enlightening and sophisticated exposition on Singapore’s state-controlled history by way of a film that challenges the sanctioned narrative of the country’s communist insurgents, does not quite sufficiently evaluate or investigate the cinematic mode of performance.
Yet another issue that warrants consideration is the representation of Asia. While the collection of essays looks at performance examples in various Asian and Southeast Asian countries, they revolve primarily around a limited (and familiar) group (namely performance studies of Japan, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore). The book thus inevitably reifies the representational absence of other Asian countries that are rarely given exposition (such as Sri Lanka, Laos, or Myanmar), places where globalization has surely afflicted local consciousness and imaginations (such as through the increasing use of Internet-enabled smartphones in these countries). This gap inspires questions of how alternative modernities are lived, performed, and performatively understood in these places, an exploration of which the book could have explored more fully.
In addition, while one can ignore the occasional typographical error or omitted reference, it is difficult to disregard the recurring misrepresentation of Muslim names in both in-text and in the bibliographical entries; for such oversights reveal, ironically (and performatively), the dominance of Western academic orthodoxies and, by extension, epistemology—one underscored by Gayatri Spivak. Muslim names are oddly attributed a family name: “Noohaidi Hasan” is, for example, referenced as “Hasan, Noorhaidi”; or “Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh” is cited as “Mohamad Salleh” in the in-text reference and placed as “Salleh, Nur Asyiqin Mohamad” in the Works Cited. This is incorrect for Malays in Malaysia and Indonesia who follow the patronymic naming convention and as such should not be referenced in this fashion. For a book concerned with Asia’s unique modernities by speaking for and about Asia, such matters inadvertently reveal a need for greater acuity and attention when representing difference.
Where its scholarly focus and content is concerned, Globalization and Modernity in Asia contains many thoughtful and sophisticated chapters and remains a strong addition to the increasing number of works that have similar or related focal points. The plurality of voices, from various disciplines, allows for a rich and enlightening diversity of views, and the book’s interdisciplinary scope allows it to be an important work for scholars in Asian studies, theatre and performance studies, and critical globalization studies.
Marcus Cheng Chye Tan
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore