Transpacific studies framing an emerging field

Transpacific Studies: Framing an Emerging Field

Janet Hoskins has co-edited this collection of essays with Viet Thanh
Nguyen of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. In their introduction,
they propose a framework for a Transpacific Studies that examines the
flows of culture, capital, ideas, and labor across the Pacific, involving Asia,
the Americas, and the Pacific Islands. They consider the advantages and
limitations of models found in Asian studies, American studies, and Asian
American studies for dealing with these flows, and argue that a
Transpacific Studies model can draw from all three. These flows have
existed for centuries, and at different times, different names and
paradigms have been created to deal with them. Most recently in the past
few decades, Asia Pacific and Pacific Rim have been terms that dealt with
the importance of the Pacific to economic, political, and cultural
arrangements that span Asia and the Americas. But the rise of the
Transpacific Partnership (TPP) between the United States and at least ten
other countries bordering the Pacific or in the Pacific (as of this moment)


signals a new geopolitical alliance that has implications for global
capitalism and strategic maneuvers between the US and China.
Transpacific Studies is a framework for studying the Transpacific
Partnership and the emergence of transpacific paradigms and concepts,
and is also a critical model for considering the inequalities and
possibilities of exploitation involved in transpacific economic, military, and
corporate ambitions.
The University of Hawaii Press published this volume in October 2014,
and it can be ordered here: />
.