The art of elastic politics ethnic food, immigrant lives and multiracial neoliberalism Charles T. Lee

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lee, Charles T., 1976- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Asian Americans--Food.

Asian Americans.

Asian American business enterprises.

Ethnic restaurants.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press [2026]

Summary:

"Explores how immigrant food practices generate new political imaginaries in the shifting contours of neoliberal capitalism Develops elasticity as a political framework for navigating neoliberalism's contradictions, offering flexible and circuitous strategies for resisting precarity and inequality; Reconceptualizes ethnic restaurants as subtle political sites whose more-than-human dynamics foster strategic implications for rethinking democracy, citizenship, rights, and resistance in the evolving landscape of multiracial neoliberalism; Grounds theory in lived immigrant experience through a triadic analysis of ethnic entrepreneurship, immigrant labor, and cultural consumption in Southern California's Asian restaurant industry, illuminating how immigrant communities craft everyday forms of empowerment and resistance; Proposes strategic posthumanism to rethink capitalist instrumentality as an immanent condition of the posthuman world, arguing for its strategic redirection - emergent through ambiguity and circuity - as a generative force for progressive political engagement; Introduces transdisciplinary political theory, an original method that integrates political theory, cultural studies, food studies, ethnic studies, citizenship studies, critical consumer studies, critical geography, posthumanism and ethnographic fieldwork to generate new theoretical frameworks and chart elastic strategies for posthuman resistance and progressive politics in an era shaped by neoliberal democracy The Art of Elastic Politics: Ethnic Food, Immigrant Lives and Multiracial Neoliberalism explores how immigrant food practices inspire new ways of rethinking progressive politics in the shifting contours of neoliberal capitalism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Southern California's Asian restaurant industry, this book develops the concept of elasticity as a theoretical framework for navigating neoliberalism's contradictions. By examining how the dynamic interplay of ethnic entrepreneurship, immigrant labor and cultural consumption creates subtle, nonlinear opportunities for resistance, empowerment and citizenship contestation, the book challenges conventional political frameworks through a flexible and circuitous approach to contesting precarity and inequality. Bridging political theory, cultural studies, food studies and posthumanism, this interdisciplinary study - organized around the themes of Elastic Food, Elastic Citizenship and Elastic Governance - equips scholars, activists and students with nuanced tools and frameworks for grappling with the challenges and complexities of migration, citizenship, governance and global capitalism in a rapidly evolving world"-- De Gruyter Brill

Contents:

Introduction : transformation is in the details : ethnic food, immigrant lives, and the art of elastic politics in neoliberal times

Strategic posthumanism : happy objects, affective economy, and reanimating citizenship life

The posthuman politics of happy objects : from the mystery of the Chinese chop suey to the renaissance of the Korean soft tofu stew

Of “626” and “bobalife” : ethnoburbs, transnational Asian material culture, and reinventing the right to the city in the age of multiracial neoliberalism

Elastic citizenship through Asian restaurants in SoCal : the triangular improvisation of nonexistent rights via ethnic entrepreneurship, labor, and consumption in everyday life

A quasi-sovereignty that is illusive but real : market, civil society, and toward a left art of elastic governance

Redesigning reforms in the threshold space between mainstream reform and radical abolition : state, posthuman attachment, and the elastic recrafting of rights

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (De Gruyter Brill, viewed February 12, 2206)

Other Format:

Print version Lee, Charles T., 1976- Art of elastic politics

ISBN:

9781399557405

1399557408

9781399557412

1399557416

OCLC:

1564698184

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license