Below is the abstract that has been accpeted for the ‘In the Image of Asia: Moving across and between locations‘ conference in 2010. Interestingly the organisers have given the presenters the leeway to change their abstracts – i am assuming not vastly. This abstract was originally written as part of a panel on Malaysia but not all the papers got accepted. As such, i am going to take the oppurtunity to amend or rather revert to the original version of the paper which focuses on the tourism campaigns of Singapore, Malaysia and India.
Images of ‘Asia Lite’: Malaysia, Truly Asia
Terry Johal and Chris Hudson
Abstract: The paper examines images of Malaysia that move across borders and between locations as part of a particular imagining of Malaysia. The public relations campaign generated by Tourism Malaysia, under the heading Malaysia, Truly Asia, generates images of Malaysia that emphasize the cultural and geographical diversity of the country. Using various tropes and motifs that are recognizable globally, it creates a visual landscape of the exotic. Tourists are offered the thrill of the Oriental experience in a package where Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures mingle in a sort of one-stop Asia-lite, where safety is assured and culture shock can be avoided. The paper will analyze the motifs, tropes and narratives, used in recent Tourism Malaysia advertising campaigns (in particular television advertisements) in constructing a tamed and controlled Asia that will be transferable across borders and range of audiences with a variety of sensibilities. A particular focus will be the space of overlap between the figurative and discursive.
Title: In the Image of Asia: Moving across and between locations
Location: ANU, Canberra, Australia
Link out: Click here
Description: This interdisciplinary conference explores how ‘Asia’ has been imagined, imaged, represented and transferred visually across linguistic, geopolitical and cultural boundaries. It aims to challenge established assumptions (and consumptions) of cultural products of ‘Asia’, from arts, artefacts and film to performance. Despite the constant movement of people and objects in the globalized world, ‘location’ still remains an important reference point in identifying images of/from ‘Asia’. The particular focus is on the role of ‘long-distance cultural specialists’ (Harris 2006) – understood in this context as artists, writers, anthropologists and intellectuals, whose works have the distinctive feature of bridging or traversing different worlds. These members of the Asian diasporas, subaltern intellectuals and transnational cultural workers use their artistic and intellectual mobility to represent their ‘native culture’ in the ‘host culture’ or elsewhere. Hence a critique on authenticity, indigeneity, hybridity and inter-cultural influence and borrowing – all of which inevitably leads to questions on power and agency – can benefit from a dialogue between theories in art history, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and anthropology.
