1 - Introduction

Summary

It has been more than fifty years since the processes of decolonization changed the political, economic and cultural landscape in Asia and its relations with its former European colonizers. For a long time, academic discussions on Europe and Asia have focused on the political implications of their colonial histories. More recently, debates have centred on contemporary aspects of the Europe-Asia partnership in terms of international relations and economic linkages. In all these discussions, relations between Asia and Europe have been predominantly studied in hegemonic terms, with Europe as the dominant political and economic and cultural centre. This centre-periphery conception of Europe-Asia relations has contributed to the establishment of seemingly unproblematic notions of a clear divide between two monolithic regions. Nevertheless such conceptions of Europe and Asia have come under increasing scrutiny given recent material realities of globalization.

Global movements of capital, knowledge and people have shown us that social spaces and cultures cannot exist next to each other as areas with boundaries around, but have to be viewed as articulated moments in a network of relations and understandings. The present volume contributes to this scrutiny by providing a critique of Europe-Asia relations from a multi-disciplinary angle. Its aims are to interrogate the dominant conceptions of Europe-Asia and to delineate the underlying complexities of the linkages between the two. To complement the predominantly political and economic interest in the Europe-Asia relationship, this volume focuses on the academic, social and cultural relations that bring Europe and Asia together, from both contemporary and historical perspectives.

The use of the terms ‘Europe’ and ‘Asia’ merits qualification. European political and cultural landscapes have undergone vast changes since World War II. More recently, the establishment of the European Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the succeeding reintegration processes set in motion have completely transformed the map of Europe. On the other hand, the more restrictive idea of the Far East has given way to amorphous politico-economic constructs like East Asia (China, Japan and Korea), South Asia (the Indian subcontinent and her neighbours) and Southeast Asia (a Cold War construct).