What Is in a Rim?

Critical Perspectives on the Pacific Region Idea

By (author) Arif Dirlik Contributions by Glenn Alcalay, Xiangming Chen, Bruce Cumings, Gary Gereffi, Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Donald M. Nonini, Neferti Xina M. Tadiar, Rob Wilson, Meredith Woo-Cumings, Alexander Woodside

Not available to order

Publication date:

12 March 1998

Length of book:

350 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780847684687

This pathbreaking, multidisciplinary work challenges our unthinking acceptance of such terms as 'Asia Pacific' and 'Pacific Rim.' Clarifying the hidden power relationships and hegemonic struggles that are disguised by ideological constructions of the region, the contributors uncover fundamental contradictions_including the human costs and consequences_that underlie the much-celebrated economic boom. In evaluating the idea of 'Asia Pacific,' the book shifts our focus from abstract relationships between capital and commodities to the human interactions that have played a formative part in the region's constitution. The contributors agree that it is these interactions that constitute the region, rather than the physical boundaries of the Pacific. This revised and updated edition brings in additional essays focusing on conceptualizations of the Pacific, considers more fully interactions among countries, and strongly emphasizes peoples within the Pacific, who are routinely ignored in most discussions of the 'Rim.'

Part 1 Introduction: Pacific as Concept and Fantasy
Chapter 2 Pacific Contradictions
Chapter 3 The Asia-Pacific Idea: Reality and Representation in the Invention of a Regional Structure
Chapter 4 The Asia-Pacific Idea as a Mobilization Myth
Chapter 5 Rimspeak, or, The Discourse of the "Pacific Rim"
Chapter 6 On the Outs on the Rim: An Ethnographic Grounding of the "Asia-Pacific" Imaginary
Part 7 The Political Economy of the Pacific
Chapter 8 The Northeast Asian Political Economy
Chapter 9 Global Sourcing and Regional Divisions of Labor in the Pacific Rim
Chapter 10 Market Dependency in U.S.-East Asian Relations
Chapter 11 China's Growing Integration with the Asia-Pacific Economy
Chapter 12 Sexual Economies in the Asia-Pacific Community
Part 13 Pacific Social and Cultural Formations
Chapter 14 Latin America in Asia-Pacific Perspective
Chapter 15 The Asia-Pacific in Asian-American Perspective
Chapter 16 Pacific Island Responses to U.S. and French Hegemony
Chapter 17 Blue Hawaii: Bamboo Ridge as Critical Regionalism
Chapter 18 There Is More in the Rim than Meets the Eye: Thoughts on the "Pacific Idea"

Editor Dirlik provides an insightful concluding paper advocating inclusion of indigenous voices on 'Pacific Rim' discussions. This volume is rich in ideas and perspectives for those seeking deeper understanding of the concepts and historical, political, economic, and social forces that constitute the Pacific Rim.