From interAsian to transAsian digitalities: Reimagining digital research beyond a Western frame

This introductory paper to a special issue on InterAsian digitalities proposes the term TransAsian digitalities as an epistemology and a methodology to research digital life outside of a Western frame, in parts of the world where the fraught relationship between human beings and technological devices and platforms is vibrant and understudied. The introduction retraces the origin of TransAsian digitalities which is part of a broader set of research activities, conservations, and conferences on Southern Digitalities, a project to theorize digital life in the Global South at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South (#IAS_NUQ) at Northwestern University in Qatar. It situates TransAsian digitalities within current efforts to decolonize knowledge production on the digital, emphasizing the need to rethink the categories at our disposal to make sense of digital life in Asia. Asia is here understood not as a locus or bounded geographical space, but rather as a nexus, made up of diverse digital encounters, frictions, and tensions. As the special issue demonstrates, using TransAsian Digitalities as an epistemology and a methodology moves us beyond national and sub-regional siloes into new and unchartered territories. Building on earlier debates about “Asia as method,” we propose TransAsian digitalities as a standpoint from which to forge new knowledge on the digital rooted in deep local engagements and theories. The article ends by providing a brief overview of the six papers in the special issue.