Transpacific precarities: responding to Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Found and Rita Wong’s forage in East Asia
Journal
Inter-Asia Cultural Studies
Journal Volume
20
Journal Issue
4
Pages
564-581
Date Issued
2019
Author(s)
Abstract
This essay investigates the stakes involved in responding to transpacific texts in East Asia, specifically in universities in Macau and Taiwan. It focuses on responses to two texts that represent in distinct ways precariatized lives in a transpacific frame: Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Found, a text that uncovers a path from Laos to a refugee camp in Thailand to Canada, a path made legible through a scrapbook kept by Thammavongsa’s father; and Rita Wong’s forage, a text that cuts across and between South China and North America to track the movements of peoples and goods and waste, including the movement of electronic waste (or “e-waste”). By discussing selected responses to these texts, this essay investigates how such responses can be considered as part of a long-term pedagogical process of cultivating imaginations and striving to develop forms of responsibility to what this essay calls transpacific precarities. It suggests that carefully attending to such responses, always partial and in progress, can help us to better understand Asian American studies in East Asia as it continues to evolve through acts of teaching and learning in different sites. © 2019, © 2019 Guy Beauregard. All rights reserved.
Subjects
decolonization; e-waste; imperialism; pedagogy; poetics; precarity; refugees; Rita Wong; settler colonialism; Souvankham Thammavongsa; Transpacific
SDGs
Type
journal article