Third World Studies, Not Ethnic Studies: Re-Building Global Solidarity from Asian American Studies and Native Studies

Session Submission Type: Non-Paper Session: Dialogue Format

Abstract

The historian Gary Okihiro issues a provocative argument in his book _Third World Studies_ that the discipline of ethnic studies has been misnamed. ‘Ethnic studies,’ Okihiro shows, originates from the halls of liberal sociology, which sought to determine whether it was possible for immigrant and racialized ethnic groups to assimilate into the mainstream of white American society. Contrarily, elements of ethnic studies pursued cultural nationalism highlighting ethnicity or culture within the nation-state. Most moved from the cult of ethnicity to racial formation, organizing their fields into separate racialized categories named by Europeans, problematically so, as the original articulation for Third World studies linked the US student movement with global liberation struggles and the Third World project of decolonization and self-determination.

In this dialogue session, we gather scholars to discuss if indeed what we do falls better under the rubrics of Third World Studies, not ethnic studies. While Okihiro’s interventions have been broadly aimed across communities of color with an international scope, our session is grounded in his more immediate engagements with Asian American studies and Native studies, with speakers from these fields addressing the potential of his work to re-build lines of solidarity across the global color line. Speaking to the larger ASA theme ‘Build As We Fight,’ we build from the resistance movements that gave our discipline life and vitality necessitates a reclamation of the name of the legacy from which we are intellectual descendants. Gary Okihiro himself will present the argument for Third World studies and against ethnic studies by tracing the intellectual histories of ethnic studies in the early twentieth century to its reincarnations in 1968 and thereafter. Karen Ishizuka will then speak on how people of color movements in the U.S in the 1960s and 1970s saw their being part of the "Third World" as a unifying and empowering concept for groups that shared the oppression of white supremacy because it was a more accurate designation than being considered a “minority.” While acknowledging that “ethnic studies” does not properly name the subjects that comprise the field, and that “third world studies” properly evokes processes of colonization and exploitation, Daryl Maeda will ask if it is possible to envision a third world studies that musters the critiques Okihiro argues for while simultaneously navigating the logics of neoliberal academia. Doug Kiel will problematize the argument for Third World studies by discussing its awkward relationship with Native studies and its theorization of the Fourth World’s experience of settler colonialism. Ji-Yeon Yuh will discuss possibilities for moving forward from ethnic studies to the transnational, radical vision of third world studies. Finally, Justin Tse will reflect on how commitment to Third World studies as a concept has shaped his pedagogy in trans-Pacific Asian American studies in ways that have both confused and conscientized students.

Sub Unit

• Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association

Chair

• Ji-Yeon Yuh, Northwestern University

Panelists

• Gary Y Okihiro, Yale University

• Daryl Maeda, University of Colorado-Boulder

• Karen L. Ishizuka, Japanese American National Museum

• Doug Kiel, Northwestern University

• Justin K Tse, Singapore Management University