Culture Against History? The Politics of East Asian Identity

Abstract

This essay examines changes in attitudes toward the question of cultural identity over the last three decades, with particular reference to the quest for an East Asian identity. The question of cultural identity is bound up with the history of EuroAmerican colonialism, which denied to other societies a historical presence of their own. The radical notional liberation movements of the 1960s sought to overcome the opposition between "the past" and "the West" by resting their hopes on revolutionary struggles that would create new cultures in the process of the struggle out of present-day realities in which "the past" and "the West" were intertwined inextricably. By contrast, there has been a retreat in recent years into native "traditions," which once again focus on this opposition. The retreat into traditionalism nourishes ethnic and national particularism.