State Inc. and Asian Diasporas in Knowledge Spaces
Speaker: Julie Tian Miao, Associate Professor in Property and Economic Development, University of Melbourne; Visiting Scholar, Harvard University Asia Center
Moderator: Anthony J. Saich, Daewoo Professor of International Affairs; Director, Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia, Harvard Kennedy School
Abstract: Drawing insights from three relevant yet largely separated fields of scholarship on diaspora, science policies, and (extra-)territorial development, Professor Julie Miao will assess how Asian tech diasporas experience knowledge space as an assemblage of “ethnoscape” and “ideoscape” – terms used by Arjun Appadurai to chart the global landscapes of modernity. Focusing on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean diasporas working in biotech and related sectors in the Boston metropolitan area, her study examines the forming of Asian diasporas’ lived and worked experiences as part of the ethnoscape. She reveals how these experiences shape and are shaped by the ideoscape of their homeland. Emerging evidence shows that inter-generational differences in the forming and evolving of an ethnoscape are much stronger than cross-national differences. Most Asian tech diaspora members aim to embed themselves in the host country’s science and technology landscape, and the United States' extraterritorial and national security policies exert a far more significant impact on these workers’ career projections and ambitions than their homelands.