ABSTRACT
The Asia-Pacifi c region is a geo-political and economic construct. Spanning East and South East Asia as well as countries in the southern Pacifi c Ocean and Pacifi c Rim, including Australia and New Zealand, the collectivizing of such disparate nations and cultures perhaps only largely makes sense as a post-World War II political and economic imaginary, as opposed to a purely geographic cartography. Yet, at the same time, the magnitudes of thinking through what Jen Webb characterizes as “the Asia-Pacifi c effect” is essential. Although created “in language by . . . national and geopolitical entities . . . there is an effect of Asia-Pacifi c which allows us to talk about it as a Real thing.”1 Webb argues that the space for agency created by the Asia-Pacifi c effect enables regional cultural producers and organizations to represent themselves, both individually and collectively, “rather than be represented by old colonialist patterns and practices” and they can thereby “claim a legitimated voice . . . and challenge the hegemony of ‘Euramerican’ narratives, values and aesthetics.”2
