Calls for Papers

Call for Papers: Cultural Values in the Asia-Pacific

Submissions are invited from graduate students for a special issue of the Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies addressing the theme – ‘Cultural Values in the Asia-Pacific’.

We cordially ask contributors to explore the theme of cultural values and its related issues in the Asia-Pacific. In addition, we are also seeking book reviews, as well as feature cover artists and reviews for the Arts and Culture editorial. This may be widely interpreted as current reviews/commentary on any field of cultural studies specific to the theme, debates, politics, art, exhibitions, film, television, music groups, performances, dance, drama, stage productions etc and must be work or reviews by current or recent graduate students.

The concept of culture has long been utilized to explain diversity in human thought and behaviour. Although a precise definition of culture has eluded scholars, there is a widespread consensus that culture is created and transmitted through patterns of values, ideas and other symbolic-meaningful systems among those who share a language, a historic period, geographic location, and/or (sometimes) religion. To note, Trompenaar (1993) presented a comprehensive model of culture at three distinctive levels. The first (‘outer’) layer is represented by the part of the culture which is immediately explicit and observable, such as language, fashion, food and buildings. The second layer consists of the norms and values of the cultural group being represented. Such norms and values often guide behaviour in terms of what is ‘good/bad’ and ‘right/wrong’. The final (‘core’) layer embodies perhaps the most basic value: the need for survival. According to Trompenaar, this need is what fundamentally motivates our actions.

Values, on the other hand, represent internalized motivational structures of individuals and groups that apply across situations and time. They reflect concrete and social embodiments of organizations, societies, and cultures. As such, the concept of values has been frequently drawn upon to shed light on the attitudes and behaviours of individuals and the functioning of organizations, societies, and cultures. In doing so, contributors may like to consider some of the following questions:

How fundamental are cultural values? Under that circumstances and how do they change/shift? How do cultural values relate to issues of freedom, equality, religion, and justice as well as ethnic and racial privileges? What role does issue of gender play? How should governments and social policies address the multicultural encounters given different (sometime conflicting) cultural values?  In what ways does individual and groups engage in cultural negotiations? Does it contribute to the mobilization of minorities? How does an individual or a group adapt to the pressures to conform to the dominant culture while maintaining their unique cultural heritage? These are only few pertinent issues around the topic.

In this call for papers, we ask contributors to explore the themes of cultural values, encouraging investigations of both contemporary and historical experiences in the Asia-Pacific that offer insights into the ways that such acts affect the lives of people and places in this region. In doing so, submissions are invited to explore the above (but not limited to) questions. Contributors may also want to consider the following aspects: globalization, multiculturalism, biculturalism, assimilation, marginalization, meaning and intersections of (cross-)cultural values across the Asia Pacific region at different points in time, experiences of minorities and migrant communities, value priorities, worldview frames, value differences, cross-cultural negotiations, communication tools for understanding cultural differences and similarities, as well as prevalent discourses that shape them.

Contributions are welcome from all fields of the arts, social sciences, and humanities, including anthropology, literature, art history and visual culture, film and media, cultural studies, gender studies, geography, queer theory, history, linguistics, political studies, psychology and sociology. GJAPS interprets the designation ‘Asia-Pacific’ in the broadest possible sense, to encompass East, Northeast and Southeast Asia, the Malay Archipelago, Australasia, Polynesia and Oceania, the West Coast of the Americas, including California, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, British Columbia, Central and South America.

Email submissions to the Editor, Beatrice Kim at gjaps@auckland.ac.nz as attachments using ‘Word Template for GJAPS Authors’ (found under Notes for Contributors in our website). Submissions should be received by 17 February 2009.

Also, for a list of current titles available for book review, please contact the Editor at the above address.

Beatrice Kim
Editor