Introduction : critical and hopeful area studies - emerging work in Asia and the Pacific

The task of revealing the cracks in contemporary hegemonies and working to see things differently is central to the project of bringing into being a world of more equity and diversity. Rather than looking to the hope of a future transformed world, of victory over injustice, it is a project of locating the glimmers of possibility that exist in the here and now and supporting them. By bringing critical poststructural approaches to empirical research on localities in Asia and the Pacific, the papers presented in this edition contribute a new practice of area studies, and a collection of hopeful geographies to help re-imagine the world in which we live.