Aihwa Ong

Ong was born in Penang, Malaysia to a Straits Chinese family in 1950.{{Cite book |last1=Coleman |first1=William |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cIV4DWKS3IAC |title=Fifty Key Thinkers on Globalization |last2=Sajed |first2=Alina |date=2013-06-26 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-16394-4 |pages=163 |language=en}} She received her B.A. in anthropology (1974) from Barnard College and earned her Ph.D. (1982) in anthropology from Columbia University. She was a visiting lecturer at Hampshire College (1982–84) before joining the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley (1984 – present).{{cite web|url=http://www.aihwaong.info|title=Personal Page|access-date=6 August 2012}} She was the Chair of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Berkeley (1999–2001), Visiting Professor at City University of Hong Kong (2001), Visiting Professor at Yonsei University (2010), and a senior researcher at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore (2010).

Ong was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for the study of sovereignty and citizenship (2001-2003) and has been awarded grants from the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation for the Social Science Research Council. She received the Cultural Studies Book Award for Flexible Citizenship (1999) from the Association for Asian American Studies as well as a prize from the American Ethnological Society. In addition, she received honorable mention for Buddha is Hiding (2003) from the Society for Urban, National, and Transnational Anthropology.

In 2007, Ong was invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos. She was the Chair of the US National Committee for Pacific Science Association from 2009-2011, and was named Robert H. Lowie Distinguished Chair in Anthropology in 2015. She continues to teach, publish, and lecture internationally.

Aihwa Ong's work deals with particular entanglements of politics, technology, ethics and affects in rapidly changing situations on the Asia Pacific rim. Ong approaches research from vantage points outside or athwart the United States. This angle of inquiry unsettles and troubles stabilized viewpoints and units of analysis in the social sciences, such as gender, class, citizenship, cities, sovereignty and the nation-state.{{Cite book|title=Reassembling International Theory|last1=Sassen|first1=Saskia|last2=Ong|first2=Aihwa|date=2014|publisher=Palgrave Pivot, London|isbn=9781349480722|pages=17–24|language=en|doi=10.1057/9781137383969_2}}

As an anthropologist, Ong employs ethnographic observation and analytical concept-work to investigate diverse subjective and institutional effects of the global on emerging situations for ways of being human today.{{Cite journal|last=Andsersen|first=Nina Trige|date=2015-04-23|title="I Don't Do Theory - I Do Concept-Work" An Interview With Aihwa Ong|url=https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/article/view/28509|journal=Kvinder, Køn & Forskning|language=da|volume=24|issue=1|issn=0907-6182}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470695811.html|title=Wiley: Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems - Aihwa Ong, Stephen J. Collier|website=www.wiley.com|access-date=2017-12-13}} From the novel freedoms and accompanying restrictions experienced by Malaysian female workers in multinational factories{{Cite web|url=http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5072-spirits-of-resistance-and-capit.aspx|title=Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline, Second Edition|website=www.sunypress.edu|access-date=2017-12-13}} to the accumulative strategies of Asian entrepreneurs in relocating family and capital overseas;{{Cite news|url=https://www.dukeupress.edu/flexible-citizenship|title=Flexible Citizenship|work=Duke University Press|access-date=2017-12-13|language=en-US}} from the disciplining of Cambodian refugees towards an embrace of American values{{Cite book|url=https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520238244|title=Buddha Is Hiding|language=en}} to the neoliberal reasoning and graduated modes of governing at work;{{Cite news|url=https://www.dukeupress.edu/neoliberalism-as-exception|title=Neoliberalism as Exception|work=Duke University Press|access-date=2017-12-13|language=en-US}} from the transformation of cities{{Cite book|title=Worlding cities : Asian experiments and the art of being global|date=2011|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|others=Roy, Ananya., Ong, Aihwa.|isbn=9781405192767|location=Chichester, West Sussex|oclc=682895182}} to the rise of contemporary art in Asia;{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=2012-08-01|title="What Marco Polo Forgot": Contemporary Chinese Art Reconfigures the Global|journal=Current Anthropology|volume=53|issue=4|pages=471–494|doi=10.1086/666699|s2cid=161951080|issn=0011-3204}} Ong's work tracks the interplay of global forces and everyday practices as they crystallize into myriad and uneven contexts for human living and belonging in modernity.

Her current work focuses on regimes of governing, technology, and culture that shape new meanings and practices of the human in an emerging global region. Her field research shifts between Singapore and China in order to track emerging global hubs for biotechnical experiments with genomic science in contemporary East Asia.{{Cite news|url=https://www.dukeupress.edu/fungible-life|title=Fungible Life|work=Duke University Press|access-date=2017-12-13|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|url=http://rorotoko.com/interview/20170118_ong_aihwa_on_fungible_life_experiment_asian_city_life/|title=ROROTOKO : Aihwa Ong On her book Fungible Life: Experiment in the Asian City of Life : Cutting-Edge Intellectual Interviews|website=rorotoko.com|language=en|access-date=2017-12-13}}

Buddha Is Hiding (2003)

This book speaks about the Cambodian refugees in America and their experience and adventure with American citizenship. It explains how the Cambodian refugees earn their American citizenship by working their way up through society the hard way. Ong also concentrates on the activity behind American institutions and how it affects the minority citizens in the society, in terms of health care, law, welfare, etc.{{Cite web|url=https://anthropology.berkeley.edu/buddha-hiding|title = Buddha is Hiding | Anthropology}}

Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems (2005)

This book argues that emerging global milieus are reinforced through the intersecting of global and local systems. Ong argues that different systems that emerge as a result of capitalism, technology, and science proliferate Asia.https://www.aihwaong.info/} {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}

Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty (2006)

This book explores the application of uneven neoliberal strategies by Asian states as a mode of thinking and practicing governing for optimal outcomes. In particular, Ong uses the example of the development of free trade zones to attract capital flows, describing it as a method of "graduated sovereignty".

Mutations in Citizenship (2006)

This book shows us how the mutations in citizenship are continuously moving, flowing and changing according to markets, technologies, societies and the population of the society. Ong starts by identifying the elements of citizenship such as citizen’s rights and laws etc. These citizens' rights are becoming incoherent from each other and being reformed to the criteria of neoliberalism and human rights. She also shows us that the “assemblage” are being taken over by political mobilizations of diverse groups instead of national terrain. In Europe, the amount of migrant flows and unregulated markets are what challenges liberal citizenship. But in Asia, foreigners who establish businesses or become entrepreneurs in the Asian region have the rights and the benefits of a citizen, so this shows us the contradiction and unfair problem between Europe and Asia.{{Cite journal|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0263276406064831|doi=10.1177/0263276406064831|title=Mutations in Citizenship|year=2006|last1=Ong|first1=Aihwa|journal=Theory, Culture & Society|volume=23|issue=2–3|pages=499–505|s2cid=144432063}}

Asian Biotech: Ethics and Communities of Fate (2010)

This book shows us a glimpse of the emerging biosciences landscape in Asia. Ong provided a collection of case studies on biotech topics including genetically modified foods, clinical trials, blood collection, stem cell research etc. These are studies conducted all over Asia in countries such as Singapore, China and India.{{Cite web|url=https://anthropology.berkeley.edu/asian-biotech-ethics-and-communities-fate|title=Asian Biotech: Ethics and Communities of Fate | Anthropology|website=anthropology.berkeley.edu}}

Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments with the Art of Being Global (2011)

This book challenges mainstream narratives of a "global city" and highlights various roles, aspirations, and speculations of developing nation-states.

Fungible Life: Experiment in the Asian City Of Life (2016)

In this book, Ong speaks about the world of bioscience research and explains how Asian biosciences and cosmopolitan sciences go hand in hand and are connected in a tropical climate having the threat of many diseases. She presents examples of biomedical centers in Asia, such as Singapore and China and explains how they map genetic variants, disease risks, biomarkers, etc. Singapore is a diverse country with citizens having an array of many nationalities. Singapore’s diverse population makes a good example for ethnic stratified databases that represent the populations in Asia. Allowing public access to genomic science in Asia, researchers and scientists will be able to study and discover the relationships between people, objects and spaces, these researches will eventually make a big impact and evolution in the scientific field and put Asia on the map for these discoveries.{{Cite web|url=https://anthropology.berkeley.edu/fungible-life-experiment-asian-city-life|title = Fungible Life: Experiment in the Asian City of Life | Anthropology}}

• Fungible Life: Experiment in the Asian City of Life, Duke University Press, 2016.
• Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments with the Art of Being Global, ed. with Ananya Roy, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
• Asian Biotech: Ethics and Communities of Fate, ed. with Nancy N. Chen, Duke University Press, 2010.
• Privatizing China, Socialism from Afar, ed. with Li Zhang, Cornell University Press, 2008.
• Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty, Duke University Press, 2006 [Italian, Japanese].{{cite journal|last=Stevens|first=Maila|title=Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty (Review)|journal=Intersections: Gender, History, and Culture in the Asian Context|date=May 2007|issue=15}}
• Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems, ed. with Stephen J. Collier, Blackwell Publishers, 2005.
• Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America, University of California Press, 2003 [Italian].{{cite journal|last=Rhee|first=Young Ju|title=Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, and the New America (Review)|journal=Journal of Refugee Studies|year=2004|volume=17|issue=4|pages=477–478|doi=10.1093/jrs/17.4.477}}
• Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality, 1999 [German].{{cite journal|last=Karam|first=John|title=Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Review)|journal=Anthropological Quarterly|date=January 2001|volume=74|issue=1|pages=45–46|doi=10.1353/anq.2001.0006|s2cid=143519444}}{{cite journal|last=Douglas|first=Christopher|title=Review of "Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality."|journal=BRWN Mawr Review of Comparative Literature|date=Summer 2000|volume=2|issue=1|url=http://www.brynmawr.edu/bmrcl/winter2000/ongreview.html|access-date=2012-08-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019173854/http://www.brynmawr.edu/bmrcl/winter2000/ongreview.html|archive-date=2013-10-19|url-status=dead}} Recipient of the Cultural Studies Book Award by the Association of Asian American Studies in 2001.
• Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism, ed. with Donald Nonini, Routledge, 1997.{{cite web|title=Book Awards|url=http://aaastudies.org/content/index.php/awards|publisher=Association of Asian American Studies|access-date=2 August 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202234421/http://aaastudies.org/content/index.php/awards|archive-date=2 February 2017|url-status=dead}}
• Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Labor Politics in Southeast Asia, ed. with Michael Peletz, University of California Press, 1995.
• Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia, State University of New York Press, 1987 [2010].{{cite journal|last=Hathaway|first=Donna|title=Review of "Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia."|journal=Signs|year=1989|volume=14|issue=4|pages=945–947|doi=10.1086/494558}}

• "Why Singapore Trumps Iceland: Gathering Genes in the Wild," Journal of Cultural Economy, vol. 8, no. 3, 2015.{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=2015-05-04|title=Why Singapore Trumps Iceland|journal=Journal of Cultural Economy|volume=8|issue=3|pages=325–341|doi=10.1080/17530350.2015.1009149|issn=1753-0350|hdl=10.1080/17530350.2015.1009149|s2cid=142999172|url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0jd2g92x|hdl-access=free}}
• "A Milieu of Mutations: The Pluripotency and Fungibility of Life in Asia," East Asian Science, Technology and Society, 7, (2013).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=2013-03-01|title=A Milieu of Mutations: The Pluripotency and Fungibility of Life in Asia|journal=East Asian Science, Technology and Society|language=en|volume=7|issue=1|pages=69–85|doi=10.1215/18752160-2075241|s2cid=15188524|issn=1875-2160}}
• "What Marco Polo Forgot: Asian Art Negotiates the Global," Current Anthropology, vol. 53, no. 4 (2012).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=August 2012|title=What Marco Polo Forgot: Asian Art Negotiates the Global|url=http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/What%20Marco%20Polo%20Forgot.pdf|journal=Current Anthropology|volume=53|issue=4|pages=473–494|doi=10.1086/666699|s2cid=161951080|access-date=2017-12-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215193212/http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/What%20Marco%20Polo%20Forgot.pdf|archive-date=2017-02-15|url-status=dead}}
• "Hyperbuilding: Spectacle, Speculation, and the Hyperspace of Sovereignty," in Worlding Cities eds. Ananya Roy and Aihwa Ong, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.{{Cite book|title=Worlding Cities|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=2011|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=9781444346800|editor-last=Roy|editor-first=Ananya|pages=205–226|language=en|doi=10.1002/9781444346800.ch8|editor-last2=Ong|editor-first2=Aihwa|chapter = Hyperbuilding: Spectacle, Speculation, and the Hyperspace of Sovereignty|s2cid=54671907 |chapter-url = http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/27k3b2x9|url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/27k3b2x9}}
• "The Human and Ethical Living," in Globalizing the Research Imagination, Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey eds. pp. 87–100. London: Routledge (2008).{{Cite web|url=https://www.routledge.com/Globalizing-the-Research-Imagination/Kenway-Fahey/p/book/9780415412223|title=Globalizing the Research Imagination (Paperback) - Routledge|website=Routledge.com|language=en|access-date=2017-12-12}}
• "Neoliberalism as a Mobile Technology," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 32, no. 3 (2007).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=2007-01-01|title=Neoliberalism as a mobile technology|journal=Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers|language=en|volume=32|issue=1|pages=3–8|doi=10.1111/j.1475-5661.2007.00234.x|bibcode=2007TrIBG..32....3O |issn=1475-5661}}
• "Please Stay: Pied-a-Terre Subjects in the Megacity," Citizenship Studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (2007).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=2007-02-01|title=Please Stay: Pied-a-Terre Subjects in the Megacity|journal=Citizenship Studies|volume=11|issue=1|pages=83–93|doi=10.1080/13621020601099898|s2cid=55490320|issn=1362-1025}}
• "Mutations in Citizenship," Theory, Culture, and Society, vol. 22, no. 3, (2006).{{Cite journal|last=Aihwa Ong|date=2006-05-01|title=Mutations in Citizenship|journal=Theory, Culture & Society|language=en|volume=23|issue=2–3|pages=499–505|doi=10.1177/0263276406064831|s2cid=144432063|issn=0263-2764}}
• "Experiments with Freedom: Milieus of the Human," American Literary History , vol. 8, no. 2 (2006).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=A.|date=2006-01-01|title=Experiments with Freedom: Milieus of the Human|journal=American Literary History|language=en|volume=18|issue=2|pages=229–244|doi=10.1093/alh/ajj012|s2cid=144568470|issn=0896-7148}}
• "(Re)Articulations of Citizenship," Political Science and Politics, vol. 38, no. 4 (2005).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=October 2005|title=(Re)Articulations of Citizenship|journal=PS: Political Science & Politics|volume=38|issue=4|pages=697–699|doi=10.1017/S1049096505050377|s2cid=154192882|issn=1537-5935}}
• "The Chinese Axis: Zoning Technologies and Variegated Sovereignty," Journal of East Asian Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (2004).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=April 2004|title=The Chinese Axis: Zoning Technologies and Variegated Sovereignty|journal=Journal of East Asian Studies|volume=4|issue=1|pages=69–96|doi=10.1017/S1598240800004392|s2cid=30565236|issn=1598-2408|doi-access=free}}
• "Cyberpublics and Diaspora Politics among Transnational Chinese," Interventions, vol. 5, no. 1 (2003).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=2003-01-01|title=Cyberpublics and Diaspora Politics Among Transnational Chinese|journal=Interventions|volume=5|issue=1|pages=82–100|doi=10.1080/13698032000049815|s2cid=143823098|issn=1369-801X}}
• "A Higher Learning: Educational Availability and Flexible Citizenship in Global Space," in Diversity and Citizenship Education, ed. James Banks, Wiley, 2003.{{Cite web|url=http://dpg.lib.berkeley.edu/webdb/anthpubs/search?all=language&item=74|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171229231649/http://dpg.lib.berkeley.edu/webdb/anthpubs/search?all=language&item=74|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 29, 2017|title=Anthropology Publications|website=dpg.lib.berkeley.edu|access-date=2017-12-29}}
• "Graduated Sovereignty in Southeast Asia," Theory, Culture, and Society, vol. 17, no. 4 (2000).{{Cite journal|last=Aihwa Ong|date=2000-08-01|title=Graduated Sovereignty in South-East Asia|journal=Theory, Culture & Society|language=en|volume=17|issue=4|pages=55–75|doi=10.1177/02632760022051310|s2cid=145661261|issn=0263-2764}}
• "Muslim Feminists in the Shelter of Corporate Islam," Citizenship Studies, vol. 3, no. 3 (1999).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|title=Muslim feminism: Citizenship in the shelter of corporatist Islam1|journal=Citizenship Studies|language=en|volume=3|issue=3|pages=355–371|doi=10.1080/13621029908420720|year=1999}}
• "Strategic Sisterhood or Sisters in Solidarity? Questions of Communitarianism and Citizenship in Asia," Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (1996).{{Cite journal|last=Aihwa|first=Ong|date=1996|title=Strategic Sisterhood or Sisters in Solidarity? Questions of Communitarianism and Citizenship in Asia|url=https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ijgls/vol4/iss1/7/|journal=Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies|language=en|volume=4|issue=1}}
• "Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making: New Immigrants Negotiate Racial and Ethnic Boundaries," Current Anthropology, vol. 37, no. 5 (1996).{{Cite journal|last1=Ong|first1=Aihwa|last2=Dominguez|first2=Virginia R.|last3=Friedman|first3=Jonathan|last4=Schiller|first4=Nina Glick|last5=Stolcke|first5=Verena|last6=Wu|first6=David Y. H.|last7=Ying|first7=Hu|date=1996|title=Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making: Immigrants Negotiate Racial and Cultural Boundaries in the United States [and Comments and Reply]|journal=Current Anthropology|volume=37|issue=5|pages=737–762|jstor=2744412|doi=10.1086/204560|s2cid=144222656}}
• "On the Edge of Empires: Flexible Citizenship among Chinese in Diaspora," Positions, vol. 1, no. 3 (1995).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=A.|date=1993-08-01|title=On the Edge of Empires: Flexible Citizenship among Chinese in Diaspora|journal=Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique|language=en|volume=1|issue=3|pages=745–778|doi=10.1215/10679847-1-3-745|issn=1067-9847}}
• "The Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity," Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 20 (1991).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=1991|title=The Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity|journal=Annual Review of Anthropology|volume=20|pages=279–309|jstor=2155803|doi=10.1146/annurev.anthro.20.1.279}}
• "State versus Islam: Malay Families, Women's Bodies, and the Body Politic in Malaysia," American Ethnologist, vol. 17, no. 2 (1991).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=1990|title=State versus Islam: Malay Families, Women's Bodies, and the Body Politic in Malaysia|journal=American Ethnologist|volume=17|issue=2|pages=258–276|jstor=645079|doi=10.1525/ae.1990.17.2.02a00040}}
• "The Production of Possession: Spirits and Multinational Corporation in Malaysia," American Ethnologist, vol. 15, no. 1 (1988).{{Cite journal|last=Ong|first=Aihwa|date=1988|title=The Production of Possession: Spirits and the Multinational Corporation in Malaysia|journal=American Ethnologist|volume=15|issue=1|pages=28–42|jstor=645484|doi=10.1525/ae.1988.15.1.02a00030|s2cid=30121345 |url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1gg97481}}

{{Reflist}}

• University of California, Berkeley Faculty Page [https://web.archive.org/web/20111113195212/http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/users/aihwa-ong Aihwa Ong | Anthropology Department, UC Berkeley]
• Personal Page [http://www.aihwaong.info Aihwa Ong - Official Website]
• [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aihwa_Ong Aihwa Ong | University of California, Berkeley, CA | Department of Anthropology | UCB | ResearchGate]

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Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty

Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni

Category:Barnard College alumni

Category:People from George Town, Penang

Category:Malaysian academics

Category:Living people

Category:Peranakan people in Malaysia

Category:1950 births

Category:MacArthur Fellows

Category:21st-century anthropologists