Description
East Asia is central to the future of International Studies, due to the accelerated flow of technologies, cultures, and aesthetic norms from and within the region. The convergences and divergences of such cross-border flows produce the developments that impact gendered bodies, from idols to working-class women, both locally and globally. However, these politicised yet non-militarised areas arising from East Asia remain largely under-theorised within the IR discipline, which continues to centre on western cultural and feminist phenomena. Through an embodied feminist lens, this panel seeks to explore the positive outcomes and pitfalls emerging through East Asian cultures, using case studies about China, Thailand, South Korea, and North Korea.
With this in mind, the panel unpacks the following: How are sociopolitical shifts in modern-day East Asia impacting the embodiment of gender inequalities within and across national borders? And why is this worth examining? Embodiment here defines bodies as a site of power, where political shifts at the structural level are constantly being enacted on and mobilised through, interweaving the micro and the macro. Ultimately, this panel offers a bottom-up feminist understanding of future cooperation and tensions in everyday spheres of East Asia, to invigorate discussions within today’s ever-changing IR landscape.