AARC Books

Popular Sovereignty in Early Modern Constitutional Thought

Daniel Lee
2016

Popular sovereignty—the doctrine that the public powers of the state originate in a concessive grant of power from ‘the people’—is perhaps the cardinal doctrine of modern constitutional theory. Its classic formulation is to be found in the major theoretical treatments of the modern state, such as in the treatises of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and it functions as a model in the design of modern constitutions, by locating the source of such public power in a putative ‘We the People’ anterior to public institutions. This book explores the intellectual origins of this constitutional...

Learning from Shenzhen: China’s Post-Mao Experiment from Special Zone to Model City

Mary Ann O’Donnell
Winnie Wong
Jonathan Bach
2017

This multidisciplinary volume, the first of its kind, presents an account of China’s contemporary transformation via one of its most important yet overlooked cities: Shenzhen, located just north of Hong Kong. In recent decades, Shenzhen has transformed from an experimental site for economic reform into a dominant city at the crossroads of the global economy. The first of China’s special economic zones, Shenzhen is today a UNESCO City of Design and the hub of China’s emerging technology industries.Bringing China studies into dialogue with urban studies, the contributors explore how...

A Shadow over Palestine: The Imperial Life of Race in America

Keith P. Feldman
2017

A Shadow over Palestine brings a new, deeply informed, and transnational perspective to the decades and the cultural forces that have shaped sharply differing ideas of Israel’s standing with the United States—right up to the violent divisions of today. Focusing on the period from 1960 to 1985, author Keith P. Feldman reveals the centrality of Israel and Palestine in postwar U.S. imperial culture. Some representations of the region were used to manufacture “commonsense” racial ideologies underwriting the conviction that liberal democracy must coexist with racialized conditions of...

Researching Philippine Realities: A Guide to Qualitative, Quantitative, and Humanities Research

Eos Trinidad
2018

Responding to the need for contextualized inquiry, Researching Philippine Realities is a practical manual that accompanies students and scholars in writing qualitative, quantitative, or humanities research. The book guides the reader from the broad basics of forming a question and argument to the specific concepts of writing a literature review and a results or discussion section.

Roots of the Issei: Exploring Japanese American Newspapers

Andrew Leong
2018

Roots of the Issei presents a complex and nuanced picture of the Japanese American community in the early twentieth century: a people challenged by racial prejudice and anti-Japanese immigration laws trying to gain a foothold in a new land while remaining connected to Japan. Against this backdrop, Andrew Way Leong examines the emergence of generational terms that have long been used to organize Japanese American narratives: issei (first generation), nisei (second generation), and sansei (third generation). In the process, he suggests these widely-used generational concepts are in...

Education and Racism: A Primer on Issues and Dilemmas

Zeus Leonardo
2018

Education and Racism is a concise and easily accessible primer for introducing undergraduate and graduate students to the field of race and education. Designed for introductory courses, each chapter provides an overview of a main issue or dilemma in the research on racial inequality and education and the particular approaches that have been offered to explain or address them. Theme-oriented chapters include curriculum, school (re)segregation, and high stakes testing as well as discussions on how racism intersects with other forms of marginality, like socio-economic status. The focus...

Immigration and Democracy

Sarah Song
2018

Immigration is one of the most polarizing issues in contemporary politics. It raises questions about identity, economic well-being, the legitimacy of state power, and the boundaries of membership and justice. How should we think about immigration and what policies should democratic societies pursue? Some contend that borders should generally be open and people should be free to migrate in search of better lives. Others insist that governments have the right to unilaterally close their borders and should do so. In Immigration and Democracy, Sarah Song develops an intermediate ethical...

Southeast Asian Migration: People On the Move in Search of Work, Refuge and Belonging

Khatharya Um
Sofia Gaspar
2019

Southeast Asia has long been a crossroad of cultural influence and transnational movement, but the massive migration of Southeast Asians throughout the world in recent decades is historically unprecedented. Dispersal, compelled by economic circumstance, political turmoil, and war, engenders personal, familial, and spiritual dislocation, and provokes a questioning of identity and belonging. This volume features original works by scholars from Asia, America, and Europe that highlight these trends and perspectives on Southeast Asian migration within and beyond the Asia-Pacific region....

Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places: Justice Beyond and Between

Marianne Constable
Leti Volpp
Bryan Wagner
2019

For many inside and outside the legal academy, the right place to look for law is in constitutions, statutes, and judicial opinions. This book looks for law in the “wrong places”—sites and spaces in which no formal law appears. These may be geographic regions beyond the reach of law, everyday practices ungoverned or ungovernable by law, or works of art that have escaped law’s constraints. Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places brings together essays by leading scholars of anthropology, cultural studies, history, law, literature, political science, race and ethnic studies, religion,...

An Empire of Touch: Women's Political Labor and the Fabrication of East Bengal

Poulomi Saha
2019

Poulomi Saha offers an innovative account of women’s political labor in East Bengal over more than a century, one that suggests new ways to think about textiles and the gendered labors of their making. An Empire of Touch argues that women have articulated—in writing, in political action, in stitching—their own desires in their own terms. They produce narratives beyond women’s empowerment and independence as global and national projects; they refuse critical pronouncements of their own subjugation. Saha follows the historical traces of how women have claimed their own labor,...