Southern Papers Series/ Working Papers #10. A comparison between Asianism and Africanism. A study of modern legitimizing symbols

What is culture? What are the characteristics of East Asian culture? These are the basic questions for those who study Asian development of regionalism from a cultural perspective. Yet, a cultural perspective is not necessary to be an essentialist one, because culture is dynamic in nature, interacting with its social structure and changes. For example, it is difficult for those who consider the communitarian values as the characteristics of East Asian culture to think it in a dynamics fashion. In this paper, the concept of culture will be treated in a dynamic way. On the other hand, it is also important to demonstrate and explain the constant elements of East Asian culture. For these reasons, this research will study the narratives of Asianism, which refer mostly to the characteristics of East Asian culture, and compare them with those of Africanism. A comparison between Asianism and Africanism contributes to our understanding of the role of culture in the regionalist construction of East Asia and Africa, and the cultural characteristics of the two regions. The first demonstrates the dynamics of culture, while the second relates to the constant cultural elements of East Asian and Africa. (...)