2 - Emerging Mega-Asia: A New Paradigm for Asian Studies

Presentation Abstract
Asia has shed its identity as a passively objectified ‘the Other’ and has come to be defined in its own terms as a mega-region, connected by the dynamics of globalization, regionalization, and regionalism. This present and future of a new Asia can be understood using the concept of ‘mega-Asia’. This paper explores the efficacy of the ‘mega-Asia’ concept, as both an analytical tool and as an ontological reality of present-day Asia. Firstly, it is demonstrated how the establishment of Asia itself as a unit of analysis may adequately capture the rapidly changing reality of Asia as a networked whole region. Secondly, it is proposed that ‘mega-Asia’ may also be understood as a global or regional dynamic emerging through the participation of the diverse regions of Asia, as well as being a mega-network connecting these diverse regions of Asia.