This issue revives an earlier practice in the Journal of Asian Studies (JAS) of bringing together scholarship and discussions under the heading of forums. The purpose is to provide intellectual engagements on seminal topics, themes, key words, and texts. Perhaps more important, the forums will provide an opportunity to debate the entangled and connected histories within (and without) Asia. Each forum will consist of three or four essays or articles—plus an introduction and/or an afterword. The plan is to include two or three forums in each volume of the JAS.
The forum in this issue is entitled “Anti-colonialism in Asia: The Centenary of 1919.” The concatenation of political movements across the globe were not only promoting the principles of self-determination for the world's oppressed, colonized, and exploited populations, but also contending with radical planetary transformations in the aftermath of the Great War, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the influenza pandemic. As the essays in the forum explain, the events in China, Korea, and India reflect specific national histories of anti-colonialism emerging in 1919. However, “1919” should not only be viewed as a single year of important events in Asia; rather, it is a center point or node for the larger movements of anti-colonialism that emerged globally in the early decades of the twentieth century. Further, as the authors explain, the May Fourth Movement in China, the March First Movement in Korea, and the satyagrahas and mass politics in India can no longer be studied only within national frameworks, as scholars over the past few decades have provided new insights into the global networks of intellectuals, organizations, trade, and politics that connected histories together in unexpected and productive ways. The contributions of Rebecca E. Karl, Durba Ghosh, Gi-Wook Shin, Rennie Moon, and Erez Manela provide important reflections and interpretations of the meanings of “1919” for the twenty-first century.
The articles in this issue continue with the idea of bringing together the diverse range of research in Asian studies across the disciplines. Susan H. Whiting, Daniel Abramson, Shang Yuan, and Stevan Harrell consider the impact of the factors of ecology, governance, and markets in China's Chengdu Plain in order to analyze the resilience of the agrosystem in the longue durée. Elena Barabantseva and Caroline Grillot examine marriage migrations from Russia and Vietnam to the People's Republic of China as a way to explain issues of border security and population controls, while also examining the long-term impact of race and gender in making state policies in China. Lauren Meeker’s article on women's popular Buddhist practices in northern Vietnam examines the social nature of moral personhood as an intersubjective relationship. Suyoung Son turns to an analysis of the movement of texts in the “interliterate Sinographic sphere” as a way to rethink the nature of cosmopolitanism in early modern East Asia. Japan's refugee policies are the center of Konrad Kalicki’s essay, in which he highlights the role of Japanese civil society in rethinking refugee admission and its potential to transform state policies throughout East Asia.
Finally, a note from the Editorial Board. The Editorial Board is committed to a timely review process for all research articles. It welcomes ideas for forums across the disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and beyond—especially on subjects that open new directions within Asian studies. Moreover, this is a good time for readers to submit an article to the JAS, as there is no backlog.
—Vinayak Chaturvedi
