In his position paper for the EASTS, Professor Fu raises a series of issues that help define the mission and outlook of the journal. They may be summarized in question form as follows: (1) Is East Asia a useful category for science and technology studies? (2) Is East Asia STS simply the application of existing theories from the United States or Europe to East Asia? Is its aim simply to produce case studies modeled on Western scholarship? How can East Asian STS be fruitfully distinctive from what is being practiced in the West today? And (3) how can we best put East Asian STS into social practice?
I agree with much of what Fu has to say on these questions. I certainly share his belief that East Asian STS can make significant contributions to science and technology studies in general. As laid out in Fu's paper, however, East Asian STS seems a little too circumscribed and limiting; it leaves out many interesting possibilities and opportunities. Put facetiously, I've imagined East Asian STS to be a fox, but what comes out of Fu's paper looks rather like a hedgehog. Let me explain why.
