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Aihwa Ong

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Aihwa Ong
王愛華
Ong in 2016
Born (1950-02-01) February 1, 1950 (age 74)
George Town, Penang, Federation of Malaya
OccupationProfessor of Anthropology
Known forAnthropologist, Professor & Author
Academic background
EducationBarnard College (B.A.) Columbia University (Ph.D.)[1]
ThesisWomen and Industry: Malay Peasants in Coastal Selangor, 1975-80[2] (1982[2])
Doctoral advisorJoan Vincent, Myron Cohen, Robert F. Murphy[2]
Academic work
DisciplineAnthropology
Sub-disciplineSociocultural anthropology, anthropology of Southeast Asia
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
Main interestsScience technology and society, anthropology of citizenship, neoliberalism, modernity
Notable worksSpirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia; Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty; Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America; Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality; Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems
Notable ideasGlobal assemblages, flexible citizenship, graduated sovereignty, fungible life
Websitehttps://www.aihwaong.info
Aihwa Ong
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese王愛華
Hanyu PinyinWáng Àihuá
JyutpingWong4 Oi3 Waa4
Hokkien POJÔng Ài-hôa
Tâi-lôÔng Ài-huâ

Aihwa Ong (simplified Chinese: 王爱华; traditional Chinese: 王愛華; pinyin: Wáng Àihuá; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ông Ài-hôa; born February 1, 1950) is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, a member of the Science Council of the International Panel on Social Progress, and a former recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship for the study of sovereignty and citizenship. She is well known for her interdisciplinary approach in investigations of globalization, modernity, and citizenship from Southeast Asia and China to the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Her notions of 'flexible citizenship', 'graduated sovereignty,' and 'global assemblages' have widely impacted conceptions of the global in modernity across the social sciences and humanities. She is specifically interested in the connection and links between an array of social sciences such as; sociocultural anthropology, urban studies, and science and technology studies, as well as medicine and the arts.[3]

Life and career

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Ong was born in Penang, Malaysia to a Straits Chinese family in 1950.[4] She received her B.A. in anthropology (1974) from Barnard College and earned her Ph.D. (1982) in anthropology from Columbia University. She was a visiting lecturer at Hampshire College (1982–84) before joining the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley (1984 – present).[5] She was the Chair of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Berkeley (1999–2001), Visiting Professor at City University of Hong Kong (2001), Visiting Professor at Yonsei University (2010), and a senior researcher at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore (2010).

Ong was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for the study of sovereignty and citizenship (2001-2003) and has been awarded grants from the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation for the Social Science Research Council. She received the Cultural Studies Book Award for Flexible Citizenship (1999) from the Association for Asian American Studies as well as a prize from the American Ethnological Society. In addition, she received honorable mention for Buddha is Hiding (2003) from the Society for Urban, National, and Transnational Anthropology.

In 2007, Ong was invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos. She was the Chair of the US National Committee for Pacific Science Association from 2009-2011, and was named Robert H. Lowie Distinguished Chair in Anthropology in 2015. She continues to teach, publish, and lecture internationally.

Academic work

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Aihwa Ong's work deals with particular entanglements of politics, technology, ethics and affects in rapidly changing situations on the Asia Pacific rim. Ong approaches research from vantage points outside or athwart the United States. This angle of inquiry unsettles and troubles stabilized viewpoints and units of analysis in the social sciences, such as gender, class, citizenship, cities, sovereignty and the nation-state.[6][7]

As an anthropologist, Ong employs ethnographic observation and analytical concept-work to investigate diverse subjective and institutional effects of the global on emerging situations for ways of being human today.[8][9] From the novel freedoms and accompanying restrictions experienced by Malaysian female workers in multinational factories[7] to the accumulative strategies of Asian entrepreneurs in relocating family and capital overseas;[10] from the disciplining of Cambodian refugees towards an embrace of American values[11] to the neoliberal reasoning and graduated modes of governing at work;[12] from the transformation of cities[13] to the rise of contemporary art in Asia;[14] Ong's work tracks the interplay of global forces and everyday practices as they crystallize into myriad and uneven contexts for human living and belonging in modernity.

Her current work focuses on regimes of governing, technology, and culture that shape new meanings and practices of the human in an emerging global region. Her field research shifts between Singapore and China in order to track emerging global hubs for biotechnical experiments with genomic science in contemporary East Asia.[15][16]

Work Overview

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Buddha Is Hiding (2003)

This book speaks about the Cambodian refugees in America and their experience and adventure with American citizenship. It explains how the Cambodian refugees earn their American citizenship by working their way up through society the hard way. Ong also concentrates on the activity behind American institutions and how it affects the minority citizens in the society, in terms of health care, law, welfare, etc.[17]

Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems (2005)

This book argues that emerging global milieus are reinforced through the intersecting of global and local systems. Ong argues that different systems that emerge as a result of capitalism, technology, and science proliferate Asia.[18]

Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty (2006)

This book explores the application of uneven neoliberal strategies by Asian states as a mode of thinking and practicing governing for optimal outcomes. In particular, Ong uses the example of the development of free trade zones to attract capital flows, describing it as a method of "graduated sovereignty".[18]

Mutations in Citizenship (2006)

This book shows us how the mutations in citizenship are continuously moving, flowing and changing according to markets, technologies, societies and the population of the society. Ong starts by identifying the elements of citizenship such as citizen’s rights and laws etc. These citizens' rights are becoming incoherent from each other and being reformed to the criteria of neoliberalism and human rights. She also shows us that the “assemblage” are being taken over by political mobilizations of diverse groups instead of national terrain. In Europe, the amount of migrant flows and unregulated markets are what challenges liberal citizenship. But in Asia, foreigners who establish businesses or become entrepreneurs in the Asian region have the rights and the benefits of a citizen, so this shows us the contradiction and unfair problem between Europe and Asia.[19]

Asian Biotech: Ethics and Communities of Fate (2010)

This book shows us a glimpse of the emerging biosciences landscape in Asia. Ong provided a collection of case studies on biotech topics including genetically modified foods, clinical trials, blood collection, stem cell research etc. These are studies conducted all over Asia in countries such as Singapore, China and India.[20]

Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments with the Art of Being Global (2011)

This book challenges mainstream narratives of a "global city" and highlights various roles, aspirations, and speculations of developing nation-states.[18]

Fungible Life: Experiment in the Asian City Of Life (2016)

In this book, Ong speaks about the world of bioscience research and explains how Asian biosciences and cosmopolitan sciences go hand in hand and are connected in a tropical climate having the threat of many diseases. She presents examples of biomedical centers in Asia, such as Singapore and China and explains how they map genetic variants, disease risks, biomarkers, etc. Singapore is a diverse country with citizens having an array of many nationalities. Singapore’s diverse population makes a good example for ethnic stratified databases that represent the populations in Asia. Allowing public access to genomic science in Asia, researchers and scientists will be able to study and discover the relationships between people, objects and spaces, these researches will eventually make a big impact and evolution in the scientific field and put Asia on the map for these discoveries.[21]

Publications

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Books and edited volumes

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  • Fungible Life: Experiment in the Asian City of Life, Duke University Press, 2016.
  • Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments with the Art of Being Global, ed. with Ananya Roy, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
  • Asian Biotech: Ethics and Communities of Fate, ed. with Nancy N. Chen, Duke University Press, 2010.
  • Privatizing China, Socialism from Afar, ed. with Li Zhang, Cornell University Press, 2008.
  • Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty, Duke University Press, 2006 [Italian, Japanese].[22]
  • Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems, ed. with Stephen J. Collier, Blackwell Publishers, 2005.
  • Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America, University of California Press, 2003 [Italian].[23]
  • Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality, 1999 [German].[24][25] Recipient of the Cultural Studies Book Award by the Association of Asian American Studies in 2001.
  • Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism, ed. with Donald Nonini, Routledge, 1997.[26]
  • Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Labor Politics in Southeast Asia, ed. with Michael Peletz, University of California Press, 1995.
  • Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia, State University of New York Press, 1987 [2010].[27]

Selected articles and chapters

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  • "Why Singapore Trumps Iceland: Gathering Genes in the Wild," Journal of Cultural Economy, vol. 8, no. 3, 2015.[28]
  • "A Milieu of Mutations: The Pluripotency and Fungibility of Life in Asia," East Asian Science, Technology and Society, 7, (2013).[29]
  • "What Marco Polo Forgot: Asian Art Negotiates the Global," Current Anthropology, vol. 53, no. 4 (2012).[30]
  • "Hyperbuilding: Spectacle, Speculation, and the Hyperspace of Sovereignty," in Worlding Cities eds. Ananya Roy and Aihwa Ong, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.[31]
  • "The Human and Ethical Living," in Globalizing the Research Imagination, Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey eds. pp. 87–100. London: Routledge (2008).[32]
  • "Neoliberalism as a Mobile Technology," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 32, no. 3 (2007).[33]
  • "Please Stay: Pied-a-Terre Subjects in the Megacity," Citizenship Studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (2007).[34]
  • "Mutations in Citizenship," Theory, Culture, and Society, vol. 22, no. 3, (2006).[35]
  • "Experiments with Freedom: Milieus of the Human," American Literary History , vol. 8, no. 2 (2006).[36]
  • "(Re)Articulations of Citizenship," Political Science and Politics, vol. 38, no. 4 (2005).[37]
  • "The Chinese Axis: Zoning Technologies and Variegated Sovereignty," Journal of East Asian Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (2004).[38]
  • "Cyberpublics and Diaspora Politics among Transnational Chinese," Interventions, vol. 5, no. 1 (2003).[39]
  • "A Higher Learning: Educational Availability and Flexible Citizenship in Global Space," in Diversity and Citizenship Education, ed. James Banks, Wiley, 2003.[40]
  • "Graduated Sovereignty in Southeast Asia," Theory, Culture, and Society, vol. 17, no. 4 (2000).[41]
  • "Muslim Feminists in the Shelter of Corporate Islam," Citizenship Studies, vol. 3, no. 3 (1999).[42]
  • "Strategic Sisterhood or Sisters in Solidarity? Questions of Communitarianism and Citizenship in Asia," Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (1996).[43]
  • "Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making: New Immigrants Negotiate Racial and Ethnic Boundaries," Current Anthropology, vol. 37, no. 5 (1996).[44]
  • "On the Edge of Empires: Flexible Citizenship among Chinese in Diaspora," Positions, vol. 1, no. 3 (1995).[45]
  • "The Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity," Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 20 (1991).[46]
  • "State versus Islam: Malay Families, Women's Bodies, and the Body Politic in Malaysia," American Ethnologist, vol. 17, no. 2 (1991).[47]
  • "The Production of Possession: Spirits and Multinational Corporation in Malaysia," American Ethnologist, vol. 15, no. 1 (1988).[48]

References

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  1. ^ Ong, Aihwa (2015). "Aihwa Ong - Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 22, 2016. Retrieved October 20, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c Ong, Ai-hwa (1982). Women and Industry: Malay Peasants in Coastal Selangor, 1975-80 (Ph.D.). ProQuest 303061008.
  3. ^ "Aihwa Ong | Anthropology".
  4. ^ Coleman, William; Sajed, Alina (2013-06-26). Fifty Key Thinkers on Globalization. Routledge. p. 163. ISBN 978-1-136-16394-4.
  5. ^ "Personal Page". Retrieved 6 August 2012.
  6. ^ Sassen, Saskia; Ong, Aihwa (2014). Reassembling International Theory. Palgrave Pivot, London. pp. 17–24. doi:10.1057/9781137383969_2. ISBN 9781349480722.
  7. ^ a b "Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline, Second Edition". www.sunypress.edu. Retrieved 2017-12-13.
  8. ^ Andsersen, Nina Trige (2015-04-23). ""I Don't Do Theory - I Do Concept-Work" An Interview With Aihwa Ong". Kvinder, Køn & Forskning (in Danish). 24 (1). ISSN 0907-6182.
  9. ^ "Wiley: Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems - Aihwa Ong, Stephen J. Collier". www.wiley.com. Retrieved 2017-12-13.
  10. ^ "Flexible Citizenship". Duke University Press. Retrieved 2017-12-13.
  11. ^ Buddha Is Hiding.
  12. ^ "Neoliberalism as Exception". Duke University Press. Retrieved 2017-12-13.
  13. ^ Worlding cities : Asian experiments and the art of being global. Roy, Ananya., Ong, Aihwa. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. 2011. ISBN 9781405192767. OCLC 682895182.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  14. ^ Ong, Aihwa (2012-08-01). ""What Marco Polo Forgot": Contemporary Chinese Art Reconfigures the Global". Current Anthropology. 53 (4): 471–494. doi:10.1086/666699. ISSN 0011-3204. S2CID 161951080.
  15. ^ "Fungible Life". Duke University Press. Retrieved 2017-12-13.
  16. ^ "ROROTOKO : Aihwa Ong On her book Fungible Life: Experiment in the Asian City of Life : Cutting-Edge Intellectual Interviews". rorotoko.com. Retrieved 2017-12-13.
  17. ^ "Buddha is Hiding | Anthropology".
  18. ^ a b c https://www.aihwaong.info/} [bare URL]
  19. ^ Ong, Aihwa (2006). "Mutations in Citizenship". Theory, Culture & Society. 23 (2–3): 499–505. doi:10.1177/0263276406064831. S2CID 144432063.
  20. ^ "Asian Biotech: Ethics and Communities of Fate | Anthropology".
  21. ^ "Fungible Life: Experiment in the Asian City of Life | Anthropology".
  22. ^ Stevens, Maila (May 2007). "Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty (Review)". Intersections: Gender, History, and Culture in the Asian Context (15).
  23. ^ Rhee, Young Ju (2004). "Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, and the New America (Review)". Journal of Refugee Studies. 17 (4): 477–478. doi:10.1093/jrs/17.4.477.
  24. ^ Karam, John (January 2001). "Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Review)". Anthropological Quarterly. 74 (1): 45–46. doi:10.1353/anq.2001.0006. S2CID 143519444.
  25. ^ Douglas, Christopher (Summer 2000). "Review of "Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality."". BRWN Mawr Review of Comparative Literature. 2 (1). Archived from the original on 2013-10-19. Retrieved 2012-08-10.
  26. ^ "Book Awards". Association of Asian American Studies. Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  27. ^ Hathaway, Donna (1989). "Review of "Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia."". Signs. 14 (4): 945–947. doi:10.1086/494558.
  28. ^ Ong, Aihwa (2015-05-04). "Why Singapore Trumps Iceland". Journal of Cultural Economy. 8 (3): 325–341. doi:10.1080/17530350.2015.1009149. hdl:10.1080/17530350.2015.1009149. ISSN 1753-0350. S2CID 142999172.
  29. ^ Ong, Aihwa (2013-03-01). "A Milieu of Mutations: The Pluripotency and Fungibility of Life in Asia". East Asian Science, Technology and Society. 7 (1): 69–85. doi:10.1215/18752160-2075241. ISSN 1875-2160. S2CID 15188524.
  30. ^ Ong, Aihwa (August 2012). "What Marco Polo Forgot: Asian Art Negotiates the Global" (PDF). Current Anthropology. 53 (4): 473–494. doi:10.1086/666699. S2CID 161951080. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-02-15. Retrieved 2017-12-12.
  31. ^ Ong, Aihwa (2011). "Hyperbuilding: Spectacle, Speculation, and the Hyperspace of Sovereignty". In Roy, Ananya; Ong, Aihwa (eds.). Worlding Cities. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 205–226. doi:10.1002/9781444346800.ch8. ISBN 9781444346800. S2CID 54671907.
  32. ^ "Globalizing the Research Imagination (Paperback) - Routledge". Routledge.com. Retrieved 2017-12-12.
  33. ^ Ong, Aihwa (2007-01-01). "Neoliberalism as a mobile technology". Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 32 (1): 3–8. Bibcode:2007TrIBG..32....3O. doi:10.1111/j.1475-5661.2007.00234.x. ISSN 1475-5661.
  34. ^ Ong, Aihwa (2007-02-01). "Please Stay: Pied-a-Terre Subjects in the Megacity". Citizenship Studies. 11 (1): 83–93. doi:10.1080/13621020601099898. ISSN 1362-1025. S2CID 55490320.
  35. ^ Aihwa Ong (2006-05-01). "Mutations in Citizenship". Theory, Culture & Society. 23 (2–3): 499–505. doi:10.1177/0263276406064831. ISSN 0263-2764. S2CID 144432063.
  36. ^ Ong, A. (2006-01-01). "Experiments with Freedom: Milieus of the Human". American Literary History. 18 (2): 229–244. doi:10.1093/alh/ajj012. ISSN 0896-7148. S2CID 144568470.
  37. ^ Ong, Aihwa (October 2005). "(Re)Articulations of Citizenship". PS: Political Science & Politics. 38 (4): 697–699. doi:10.1017/S1049096505050377. ISSN 1537-5935. S2CID 154192882.
  38. ^ Ong, Aihwa (April 2004). "The Chinese Axis: Zoning Technologies and Variegated Sovereignty". Journal of East Asian Studies. 4 (1): 69–96. doi:10.1017/S1598240800004392. ISSN 1598-2408. S2CID 30565236.
  39. ^ Ong, Aihwa (2003-01-01). "Cyberpublics and Diaspora Politics Among Transnational Chinese". Interventions. 5 (1): 82–100. doi:10.1080/13698032000049815. ISSN 1369-801X. S2CID 143823098.
  40. ^ "Anthropology Publications". dpg.lib.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2017-12-29.[permanent dead link‍]
  41. ^ Aihwa Ong (2000-08-01). "Graduated Sovereignty in South-East Asia". Theory, Culture & Society. 17 (4): 55–75. doi:10.1177/02632760022051310. ISSN 0263-2764. S2CID 145661261.
  42. ^ Ong, Aihwa (1999). "Muslim feminism: Citizenship in the shelter of corporatist Islam1". Citizenship Studies. 3 (3): 355–371. doi:10.1080/13621029908420720.
  43. ^ Aihwa, Ong (1996). "Strategic Sisterhood or Sisters in Solidarity? Questions of Communitarianism and Citizenship in Asia". Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies. 4 (1).
  44. ^ Ong, Aihwa; Dominguez, Virginia R.; Friedman, Jonathan; Schiller, Nina Glick; Stolcke, Verena; Wu, David Y. H.; Ying, Hu (1996). "Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making: Immigrants Negotiate Racial and Cultural Boundaries in the United States [and Comments and Reply]". Current Anthropology. 37 (5): 737–762. doi:10.1086/204560. JSTOR 2744412. S2CID 144222656.
  45. ^ Ong, A. (1993-08-01). "On the Edge of Empires: Flexible Citizenship among Chinese in Diaspora". Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique. 1 (3): 745–778. doi:10.1215/10679847-1-3-745. ISSN 1067-9847.
  46. ^ Ong, Aihwa (1991). "The Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity". Annual Review of Anthropology. 20: 279–309. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.20.1.279. JSTOR 2155803.
  47. ^ Ong, Aihwa (1990). "State versus Islam: Malay Families, Women's Bodies, and the Body Politic in Malaysia". American Ethnologist. 17 (2): 258–276. doi:10.1525/ae.1990.17.2.02a00040. JSTOR 645079.
  48. ^ Ong, Aihwa (1988). "The Production of Possession: Spirits and the Multinational Corporation in Malaysia". American Ethnologist. 15 (1): 28–42. doi:10.1525/ae.1988.15.1.02a00030. JSTOR 645484. S2CID 30121345.
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