On Decontextualization and Recontextualization in East Asian Cultural Interactions: Some Methodological Reflections
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Huang Chun-chieh
Abstract
In the history of cultural interaction in East Asia, decontextualization and recontextualization can readily be observed in the exchanges of texts, people, and ideas among the different regions. When a text, person, or idea is transmitted from its home country into another country, it is first decontextualized and then recontextualized into the new cultural environment. These processes of decontextualization and recontextualization I refer to as “a contextual turn.” The present paper discusses methodological problems involved in the study of decontextualization and recontextualization. Section 1 introduces the paper. Section 2 then clarifies that “East Asia” is not an abstract term ranging over the countries of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, but rather refers to the dynamic, real process of concrete cultural interactions among these living cultures. On the dramatic stage of these interactions, China plays the role of the significant other to the many other actors. China is certainly not the sole conductor of the symphony of East Asia. Section 3 shows that the methodology of the history of ideas can be used when studying the phenomena of decontextualization. But one can easily become ensnared in what I call “the blind spot of textualism.” Section 4 provides an analytic discussion of an effective methodology for studying recontextualization that involves looking at the concrete exchange of texts, people, and ideas against a specific historical background, and then highlighting the subjective emotions of the intermediate agents in these cultural exchanges as the agents navigate the processes of decontextualization and recontextualization. This paper concludes by stressing that East Asian cultural interactions are dynamic processes and not static structures. Therefore, in our study of the history of cultural interactions in East Asia, we must seek a dynamic equilibrium between textualism and contextualism, as well as between fact and value or emotion.
© 2021 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface
- Japanology as East Asian Studies
- Articles
- On Decontextualization and Recontextualization in East Asian Cultural Interactions: Some Methodological Reflections
- Exploring Human Rights in East Asia
- Naitō Konan and Hunan Studies
- The Samurai Bond of Loyalty: Transition from Blood Ties through Self-Interested Allegiance to Absolute Devotion
- Book Reviews
- Review of Dongya wenhua jiaoliu zhong de Rujia jingdian yu linian: Hudong, zhuanhua yu ronghe (Confucian Classics and Their Ideas in the Context of Cultural Exchange in East Asia: Interaction, Transformation, and Integration), by Huang Chun-chieh. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 2011
- Review of Shu Ki “Karei” no hanpon to shisō ni kansuru jisshōteki kenkyū (Critical Studies of the Texts and Thought of Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals), by Azuma Jūji. Suita, Japan: Kansai Daigaku Bungakubu, 2003
- Review of The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, by Francis Fukuyama. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011
- Review of Qingmo Zhongri jiaoyu wenhua jiaoliu zhi yanjiu (Research on Educational and Cultural Interaction between China and Japan during the Late Qing Era). By Lu Shunchang. Beijing: Commercial Press, 2012
- Introduction of Major Institutions
- Academy of Korean Studies
- Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, National Tsing Hua University
- Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
- Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
- Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo
- Tōyō Bunko (The Oriental Library)
- Center for the Study of Asian Cultures, Kansai University
- CONTRIBUTION GUIDELINES
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface
- Japanology as East Asian Studies
- Articles
- On Decontextualization and Recontextualization in East Asian Cultural Interactions: Some Methodological Reflections
- Exploring Human Rights in East Asia
- Naitō Konan and Hunan Studies
- The Samurai Bond of Loyalty: Transition from Blood Ties through Self-Interested Allegiance to Absolute Devotion
- Book Reviews
- Review of Dongya wenhua jiaoliu zhong de Rujia jingdian yu linian: Hudong, zhuanhua yu ronghe (Confucian Classics and Their Ideas in the Context of Cultural Exchange in East Asia: Interaction, Transformation, and Integration), by Huang Chun-chieh. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 2011
- Review of Shu Ki “Karei” no hanpon to shisō ni kansuru jisshōteki kenkyū (Critical Studies of the Texts and Thought of Zhu Xi’s Family Rituals), by Azuma Jūji. Suita, Japan: Kansai Daigaku Bungakubu, 2003
- Review of The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, by Francis Fukuyama. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011
- Review of Qingmo Zhongri jiaoyu wenhua jiaoliu zhi yanjiu (Research on Educational and Cultural Interaction between China and Japan during the Late Qing Era). By Lu Shunchang. Beijing: Commercial Press, 2012
- Introduction of Major Institutions
- Academy of Korean Studies
- Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, National Tsing Hua University
- Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
- Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
- Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo
- Tōyō Bunko (The Oriental Library)
- Center for the Study of Asian Cultures, Kansai University
- CONTRIBUTION GUIDELINES
