The politics of spatiality: Terrains of postcolonial/diasporic Asian America and selected Asian American plays [electronic resource]
說明
272 p
附註
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-10, Section: A, page: 3807
Chair: Martha Bower
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 2004
Drawing on postcolonial theory, human geography, and Asian American studies, in this dissertation, I examine how the spatiality of Asian America can be configured. Historicization and contextualization of Asian America both in reality and in Asian American plays disclose the unbalanced power relations imbedded in the space. The U.S. hegemony has utilized colonial tools to dominate, control, and exploit racial minorities as European powers had colonized distant territories with epistemological and practical instruments, such as discourses of difference and maps
As the history dramas testify, Asian Americans are internally colonized by the state using "citizenship discourse" to categorize them as non-citizen. Contemporary Asian America explored through commodified Asian American space is a result of postcolonial conditions which are interrelated with colonial history when Asian Americans are legally and politically excluded from the national discourse. The unstable spatial practices exercised by lower class Asian Americans are aggravated by the nomadic Asian immigrants and Asian Americans produced by U.S. colonial, neocolonial, and imperialist projects and the world economy system. Diasporic Asian Americans contribute to formation and transformation of Asian American space by reinforcing the concerns and problems of the already structured space
The state imposes its ideology on the American landscape for its profits and interests. However, Asian Americans in the plays always resist the hegemonic cartography. The dramatic characters' resistance is articulated through diverse actions or attitudes such as protest, obstinate and recalcitrant behaviors, longing for human relationships, and yearning for new space. The plays do not end with victory for the characters, or subversion of the hegemonic system. But with the subversive and resistant spirit, Asian Americans are able to push the boundary established by the state, and redraw it for their own. For the conclusion of this dissertation, I argue that building a coalition among racial minorities is an effective strategy to deconstruct the dominant ideology and to map out ideal space for them as well
