The descriptions Chinese and Japanese people attribute to themselves and to each other differ vastly and stand in stark contrast to Western perceptions that usually identify a 'similar disposition' between the two nations. Academic Nationals in China and Japan explores human categories, how academics classify themselves and how they divide the world into groups of people. Margaret Sleeboom carefully analyses the role the nation-state plays in Chinese and Japanese academic theory, demonstrating how nation-centric blinkers often force academics to define social, cultural and economic issues as unique to a certain regional grouping. The book shows how this in turn contributes to the consolidating of national identity while identifying the complex and unintended effects of historical processes and the role played by other local, personal and universal identities which are usually discarded. While this book primarily reveals how academic nations are conceptualized through views of nature, culture and science, the author simultaneously identifies comparable problems concerning the relation between social science research and the development of the nation state. This book will appeal not only to Asianists but also to those with research interests in Cultural Studies and Sinology.

This book provides insights on research into the social, political and ethical aspects of genomics, and reflects the bioethical experiences of researchers from Japan, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Pakistan, India and Malaysia. The subjects of discussion vary from genetics in China to religious perspectives on cloning and genetic therapy. Themes include the commercial and medical application of new bioengineering technologies, such as the impact of preventive genetic medicine, genetic counselling, genetically modified organisms [GMOs] and stem-cell research on wealth distribution, cultural traditions, social well-being, and political and legal regulations and institutions. In the study of bioengineering in Asia, various perspectives were brought together at a concrete research level. The authors tried to avoid macro-concepts incorporated by dichotomies of East and West and to acquire new insights into the relationship between local knowledge systems and cultures and interests groups on the one hand and the constellation of various interests of scientific research, governments and MNCs on the other.

This volume investigates human genetic biobanking and its regulation in various Asian countries and areas, including Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India and Indonesia.. It sheds light on how cultural, socio-political and economic factors influence the set-up of bioethical regulation for human genetic biobanks and how bioethical sensitivities surrounding biobanks are handled. Apart from placing discourses of trust in an international perspective, the comparative materials presented in this volume also put into perspective the concepts of genetic theft and exploitation, and genetic wealth and trust. This collection contains case studies of biobanking practices in societies with different needs and welfare levels, and provides insights into government strategies towards genetic resources by examining bioethics as practised at home.

This volume investigates human genetic biobanking and its regulation in various Asian countries and areas, including Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India and Indonesia.. It sheds light on how cultural, socio-political and economic factors influence the set-up of bioethical regulation for human genetic biobanks and how bioethical sensitivities surrounding biobanks are handled.

Apart from placing discourses of trust in an international perspective, the comparative materials presented in this volume also put into perspective the concepts of genetic theft and exploitation, and genetic wealth and trust. This collection contains case studies of biobanking practices in societies with different needs and welfare levels, and provides insights into government strategies towards genetic resources by examining bioethics as practised at home.

"Genomics in Asia" focuses on issues dealing with the development and application of molecular biology and bioengineering technologies in Asian societies and cultures. The workshop on which this book is based aimed to gain an insight into bioethical issues with relation to the dynamics of Asian societies, cultures and religions. It was to generate debate on Asian Genomics and create a basis for comparative research into the relationship between the development and application of modern genetics, cultural values, and local interests in Asian societies. The papers first of all reflect a great variety of bioethical views discussed from the angle of different disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, creating a basis on which a further comparison between different local knowledge systems in relation to genomic practices will be feasible.

This book provides insights on research into the social, political and ethical aspects of genomics, and reflects the bioethical experiences of researchers from Japan, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Pakistan, India and Malaysia. The subjects of discussion vary from genetics in China to religious perspectives on cloning and genetic therapy. Themes include the commercial and medical application of new bioengineering technologies, such as the impact of preventive genetic medicine, genetic counselling, genetically modified organisms [GMOs] and stem-cell research on wealth distribution, cultural traditions, social well-being, and political and legal regulations and institutions. In the study of bioengineering in Asia, various perspectives were brought together at a concrete research level. The authors tried to avoid macro-concepts incorporated bydichotomies of East and West and to acquire new insights into the relationship between local knowledge systems and cultures and interests groups on the one hand and the constellation of various interests of scientific research, governments and MNCs on the other.

The great hurry to realise promised cures in stem cell research requires regulation to guarantee bioethical research practices. Yet, increasingly similar national guidelines for stem cell research yields a range of diverging research practices. This book shows how the different rationale of regulation affects stem cell research practices in Asia. In low- and medium income countries such as India and China the advancement of science has a different weight on the national agenda, and the evaluation of scientific research is measured with a different yardstick, depending on the political and national research environment. For developing countries the question of research funding into stem cell research, healthcare, and the donation of embryos, foetuses and oocytes entail different considerations compared to in affluent welfare societies. Moreover, research institutions have different cultural and political histories, so that the meaning of formal guidelines, legislation and social rules may differ according to their various institutional settings. This volume discusses the informal cultures, social conventions and traditions that are crucial to the way in which stem cell research takes place in Asia. This book was originally published as a special issue of New Genetics and Society.

Contents:
Acknowledgements Transliteration Abbreviations Part I - Framing the Nation 1. Introduction: Framing the Nation in China and Japan 1.1 Group Classifications and Distinctions 1.2 The Problem of Framing the Nation 1.3 Framing the Nation and Orientalist Categories 1.4 Framing the Nation and Reducing 'Them' and 'the Other' 1.5 Trends in Categorizing Groups 1.6 Three Forms of Grouping: Naturalist Grouping, Culturalist Grouping, Globalist Grouping 1.7 Endnotes Chapter 1 2. The Power of National Symbols: The Might of a Chinese Dragon 2.1 Feeding (on) Symbolic Power 2.1.1 The Politics of National Identity Marking 2.1.2 The Scale of Symbolic Power 2.2 The Might of a Multiple Interpretable Dragon 2.2.1 The Totem Dragon 2.2.2 The Dragon as an Oceanic Giant Python 2.2.3 The Dragon as an Embryo 2.2.4 The Modernization of a Taoist Dragon 2.3 Symbols as Effective Triggers of Associated Sentiments in Linked Contexts 2.4 Endnotes Chapter 2 3. The Coherent Force of Struggle and Diversity in Chinese Nationalism 3.1 Natural Group Markers 3.2 Origins, Coherent Force, and Consanguinity 3.3 Coherent Force: The Dialectical Unity of Merger through Struggle 3.4 Endnotes Chapter 3 Part II - Group Categorization 4. Natural Categorization 4.1 Chosen Peoples and Codified Brains 4.2 The Evolution of Us Cultural Brains and Them Civilized Brains 4.3 Instinctive Distancing: Are We Closest to Macaques or Ôbei-ans? 4.4 A Japanese Solution to Climatic Deterioration: Animism Renaissance 4.5 The King's Fall from the Forest and Western Cartesian Thought 4.6 Digging Up Genetic Roots: The Re-Appropriation of the Past 4.7 Natural Group Categories in Short 4.8 Endnotes Chapter 4 5. Culturalist Categorization 5.1 The Universality of Primitive Forest Culture: Umehara Takeshi's Jômon 5.2 Yin-Yang Regulation of the Two Hemispheres: Ye Qiaojian 5.3 Hu Fuchen: Taoist Universality and Chinese Scientific Wisdom 5.4 Universal Markers of Betrayal and Linguistic Supremacy: Tsuda Yukio 5.5 Cultural Categories
Endnotes Chapter 5 6. Global Categorization 6.1 Borderless Values 6.2 Balancing Scientistic Arguments against Japanese Uniqueness 6.3 Aidagara, Kanjinshugi, and Autopoiesis 6.4 Key Persons and National Systems-Strategies: Mutual Trust and Uncertainty 6.5 Rigid Analogous Processors and Adaptive Parallel Processors 6.6 Scientism and the Unit of the Nation Part III - Group Framing Habits and Strategies 7. Grouping 7.1 Group Architecture 7.1.1 Family Metaphors 7.2 Framing Group Differences: Horizontal Polarization, Hierarchy, Temporal Projection of Us and Them / the Other 7.3 Grouping in Short 7.4 Endnotes Chapter 7 8. Framing the Nation in the Short History of the International research Centre for Japanese Culture (Nichibunken, 1987 - ) 8.1 Institutionalised Nation-Framing and Its Failure as Social Science 8.2 Nichibunken 8.2.1 Founding Nichibunken 8.2.2 Ten Years Later 8.2.3 Archetypal Analogies and the Analysis of the National Unconscious 8.4 Structural Aspects of Knowledge Production 8.4.1 The Mass-Production of Symbolic Knowledge: Shôgi 8.5 The Unit of the Nation 8.6 Endnotes Chapter 8 9. Nation-Centred Political Strategies in Academic Thought, Examples from China and Japan 9.1 A Neglect of the Local and the Specific 9.2 Subordination of the Universal to the National 9.3 The Nation and Its Various Interest Groups 9.4 Controlling the 'National Organism' and the 'System' 9.5 Habitual Nation-Framing and Its Consequences 9.6 Endnotes Chapter 9 10. Nation Framing as an Academic Strategy in the PRC 10.1 Social Science and State Building in the PRC 10.2 Appraising National Policies 10.3 National Prescription and Conservatism 10.4 The Failure to Imagine Other Views of the Nation 10.5 The Political Predictability of Framing the Nation 10.6 Framing the Nation in the PRC: Some Features 10.7 Endnotes Chapter 10 11. Core Themes and an Outlook on Future Research 11.1 The Universal and Particular in Framing the Nation 11.2 Framing the Nation and Spatial and Temporal Order 11.3 Examples from China and Japan 11.4 Features of Nation-Framing Appendix I: Joint-Research Nichibunken [1988-1996] Appendix II: General Research Meetings Nichibunken Appendix III: Fields of Basic Research Glossary of frequently used Japanese and Chinese terms and persons References