the politics of storytelling in imperial island formations

Contributors to this special issue reconceptualize island worlds and their networks as spaces that come to life through the multiple and contested meanings constantly attached to them. Investigating the types and politics of storytelling in the island South and Southeast Asia, as well as the parallel and intersecting formations in the Caribbean and diasporic Asian America, the authors refashion the notion of comparison to move away from the project of “knowing” and to illuminate forms of comparison that emerge from local environments and local knowledges.

Contributors: Francisco Benitez, Carlo Bonura, Rick Bonus, Lin Hongxuan, Zawawi Ibrahim, Hendrik M. J. Maier, Vicente L. Rafael, Ronit Ricci, Ileana M. Rodríguez-Silva, Laurie J. Sears