Reorientations of Desire: Cultural Narratives of Asian North America, Asia, SWANA, and the Pacific

This panel develops on the premise that cultural production by those within Asian North America, Asia, SWANA, the Pacific, as well as those outside of these regions engage and use notions of desire as a tool of (sub)empire and disorienting the Other from themselves. Engaging with Edward Said’s Orientalism in different registers, the papers in this panel look at different case studies to accentuate how sound, journalism, activist movements, and archival distortions utilize desire as a tool for othering the self as well as creating a new imagined other.

Presenter 1 considers how new media by Asian North Americans has utilized Black sound and voice, as well as social scripts of what constitutes “Asian North American culture” to create a digital suburbia that leaves Asian Americans voiceless. Presenter 2 offers a comparative study of journalism between the SWANA region and the Pacific to draw to light ethical issues in journalistic practices that seem to prioritize the desire to view both regions as “trouble.” Presenter 3 presses that lessons of Black Pasifika solidarity from West Papua and New Caledonia, around desires for liberation from ongoing occupation by Indonesia and France, respectively, must be center stage in current anti-imperial and anti-war movements. Presenter 4 analyzes how US imperialism has orchestrated a revised memory of the Cultural Revolution for Chinese Americans by centering the Revolution as an object of desire. Through these perspectives, this panel will enrich conversations on the dissonant nature of desire and how it has been employed in cultural production.