Examining Racialized Emotions and its Role in Anti-Western Movements

• In Event: Asia and Asian American Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 9: Asia and Asian America Section Roundtable - Race and Politics

Abstract

The past two decades have demonstrated a menacing rise of Islamic terrorism, populism, xenophobia, and isolationism. Contemporary explanations on these escalating challenges have drawn from political models on “failed” states, or theories on the intensification of economic insecurity and an emerging cultural backlash. This presentation, however, proposes to approach these challenges through examining emotional responses to an imported racial hierarchy as the driving force behind such conflict, particularly in the context of the Philippines—a nation currently experiencing the longest-running Muslim-Christian conflict in the modern world and an increasingly anti-Western populist government. The presentation will explore the case study of Islamic separatism in the Philippines and the limits of national identity, discussing racial discrimination along the lines of religion and ethnicity, and how it manifests emotionally. Ultimately, this project explores how emotionally motivated behavior, rooted in the racial hierarchy installed by the American colonial government, has contributed to the Islamic separatist movement in the Philippines. Furthermore, it pushes how we imagine race beyond phenotypical definitions. Through an examination of the Muslim-Christian conflict in the Philippines, the presentation also provides a new way to study anti-Western populist movements, while it revisits an important period in American history that has left a lasting effect on Southeast Asia.

Author

• George Radics, National University of Singapore