Koichi Iwabuchiand relevant to wider publics, and coordinating and promoting mediated dialogues among peo-
ple in the region.
To this end, a critical comparative approach should first be advanced to understand how
the inter-national administration of cultural connection works similarly, differently, and col-
lusively in various East Asian contexts. As power configurations of cultural globalization are
constantly shifting, ongoing collaborative examination of how the uneven processes of globali-
zation interfere with popular culture connections in East Asia is essential. Such an approach is
not a detached and compartmentalizing form of international comparison but a reciprocal and
collabo rative engagement with the issues concerned. The aim is to enhance scholarly exchange
among researchers working on diverse locations and to grasp the issues as transnationally shared
ones to be tackled together. Researchers should also collaboratively make an attentive explo-
ration of existing critical thought and practices at the grass roots. While the prevalence of the
container model of the nation is hard to wipe out, the expansion of cross-border cultural flows
and connections also mundanely engenders innovative connections, imaginations, and exchanges
that displace and transcend such thinking. Yet these are often subtly disregarded and left in the
background. Like in Ulrich Beck’s (2006) assertion of “banal cosmopolitanism,” much effort is
required to bring them to the foreground, and a full understanding of how they fail to become
firmly anchored in society is indispensable to the task.
At the same time, researchers need to work hard to communicate with people inside and out-
side of the classroom to intelligibly convey the relevance of trans–East Asian dialogue, to clarify
why and how a self-reflexive rethinking of the self–other relationship and the fostering of
ethno-cultural diversity enriches the world and creates a society more caring of all its members,
including themselves. While researchers frequently discuss and theoretically engage with these
issues, effectively translating such critical insights into grass-roots “common sense” and social
praxis in everyday life remains a crucial task. A key duty of researchers is to address difficult
normative questions while demonstrating that the usefulness of critical research is “stretched
beyond the level of immediacy” so that “thinking more complexly and reflexively about issues
is actually practical, if not here and now, then in the longer term” (Ang 2004, 482). Researchers
thus need to convince the public that, in the long pursuit of a more inclusive and democratic
society, nothing is more practical than being critical. And researchers should strive to cultivate
the skill to express critical knowledge and insights in an appealing and relatable manner. The
forms this takes should be imaginative (to present a hopeful design for an inclusive society), cre-
ative (to capture the attention of a critical mass), and tenacious (to deal with the existing resilient
structure). This is rather a tough challenge but meeting it is a crucial step towards an eventual
reformulation of the present state of things.
Closely related to the style of their presentation is researchers’ commitment to playing an
active role in coordinating and facilitating public dialogues. Discussing the representation of
intellectuals, Edward Said (1994) argues for an image of the “amateur” who is motivated by and
committed to worldly issues in the society and sincerely contests oppressive authority. While this
is still a very valid idea, the public role of researchers should go beyond critically offering an intan-
gible interpretation and analysis of the complexity of what is happening in the world. Theodor
Adorno (1991, 113) expresses it this way: “Whoever makes critically and unflinchingly conscious
uses of the means of administration and its institutions is still in a position to realize something
which would be different from merely administrated culture.” As educators, researchers are most
responsible for producing such administrators, those who not only work as policy experts but
also live as critically minded citizens. In addition, researchers themselves need to take up the role
of critical administrators who devote themselves to activating and coordinating discussion among
diverse groups of people. Researchers are thus required to create public spaces and opportunities