Asian American Studies, Comparative Racialization, and Settler Colonial Critique

Abstract

This article explores how Asian American studies as a disciplinary formation and as a political and intellectual project is engaging with the Indigenous and settler colonial turns reverberating across multiple disciplines. It interrogates the question of what it would mean for Asian American studies to engage with issues and concerns raised by Native theorizing in terms of the cohering assumptions and anchoring terms of the field. It looks to particular strands of writing within Asian American studies as an archive that sheds light on the field’s multivalent yet uneven engagements with Indigenous studies. The article concludes with a consideration of more recent works in Asian American studies that aim to further extend the field’s critical reach and open up critical dialogue between Asian American studies and Indigenous studies. It looks to these works as an index charting possible future directions for Asian American studies and its various projects.