Introduction

Abstract

The four articles collected in this issue of Asian Review examine Asia not as a fixed cultural or geopolitical category, but as a dynamic field of negotiation in which power, identity, embodiment, and knowledge are continuously reconfigured. Spanning historical inquiry, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and communication theory, the contributions traverse Thailand, Nepal, North India, and Sri Lanka to illuminate how Asian societies respond creatively to structures of governance, modernization, religious practice, and epistemological dominance. Despite their disciplinary diversity, the articles are united by a shared concern with forms of tension and mediation: between state and community, intervention and refusal, technique and embodiment, and Western and Asian paradigms of knowledge.