Vol. 5 No. 1 (2023): Journal of Asian Social Science Research

Editors’ Preface
JASSR, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2023

It is with great pleasure that we present Journal of Asian Social Science Research (JASSR), Volume 5, Number 1, 2023. This issue brings together a compelling set of contributions that, while diverse in subject matter and geographical focus, are united by a common intellectual concern: how people, communities, and institutions negotiate questions of belonging, recognition, dignity, and power in rapidly changing social worlds.

The articles gathered in this issue remind us that contemporary Asia cannot be read through narrow categories or simplified oppositions. The realities examined here are shaped by layered histories, contested identities, unequal structures, and enduring struggles over inclusion and justice. In that sense, this issue speaks not only to regional concerns, but also to broader debates in social science about how societies define membership, manage difference, and imagine collective futures.

Several contributions turn our attention to communities whose experiences are too often marginalized, misunderstood, or left outside dominant narratives. The article on Indonesian atheists, for instance, raises thoughtful and necessary questions about citizenship, morality, and public belonging in a context where religion continues to occupy a central place in national life. By foregrounding voices that are rarely heard in mainstream discourse, the article invites readers to reflect on whether democratic coexistence can be sustained through a civic ethic grounded in shared humanity rather than religious conformity alone.

A similar concern with exclusion and recognition animates the article on the Hazara community in Afghanistan. Here, education emerges not simply as a developmental issue, but as a profoundly social and political one, closely tied to security, equality, access, and human dignity. The article offers a sobering account of structural barriers faced by a minority community, while also revealing forms of persistence, participation, and aspiration that complicate any reading of the Hazara experience as one of victimhood alone.

Questions of power and inequality also take shape in the issue’s engagement with gender. The article on misogynistic culture in South Korea provides an important reminder that gender injustice is never merely a matter of isolated attitudes or individual prejudice. Rather, it is sustained through historical narratives, institutional arrangements, and cultural logics that continue to shape social expectations and political discourse in the present. In bringing these deeper structures into view, the article contributes meaningfully to wider conversations on patriarchy, modernity, and the unfinished work of gender justice.

The issue also offers a valuable conceptual contribution through its discussion of Indonesian Muslim communities in Western countries. By approaching diaspora through the lens of voluntary mobility, self-organization, and transnational identity, the article broadens established understandings of diasporic life and challenges more restrictive frameworks that emphasize displacement alone. Its significance lies not only in its empirical focus, but also in its invitation to rethink how mobility, belonging, and religious identity are lived and negotiated across national boundaries.

At the level of interstate relations, the article on India and Bangladesh offers a careful reflection on more than five decades of bilateral engagement. It demonstrates that relations between neighbouring states are shaped not only by diplomacy and strategic interests, but also by memory, interdependence, political will, and the persistent need to manage both cooperation and tension. Read alongside the other contributions in this issue, the article reinforces a central insight that runs throughout the volume, namely that all social and political relations, whether between individuals, communities, or states, are shaped by histories of power and by the continual work of negotiation.

What gives this issue its coherence is not thematic uniformity, but a shared attentiveness to the lived consequences of social structures and political arrangements. The articles assembled here approach their subjects from different angles, yet together they illuminate how identities are formed, contested, and defended within settings marked by asymmetry, vulnerability, and change. They also show the continued relevance of social science scholarship that is historically informed, conceptually alert, and ethically attentive to the worlds it seeks to understand.

As editors, we are especially encouraged by the breadth and seriousness of the work represented in these pages. At a time when public life is increasingly shaped by polarization, simplification, and exclusionary rhetoric, the articles in this issue offer something both intellectually rigorous and deeply needed: careful analysis, comparative sensitivity, and an openness to complexity. They remind us that scholarship matters not only because it explains the world, but also because it can deepen our capacity to listen, to question, and to imagine more just forms of social life.

We therefore commend this issue to our readers with gratitude and hope. We are grateful to the authors for their thoughtful contributions, to the reviewers for their care and intellectual generosity, and to our readers for sustaining this shared space of inquiry. We hope that the articles in this volume will not only inform ongoing scholarly conversations, but also inspire further reflection on the many ways people across Asia and beyond continue to negotiate identity, justice, and belonging in an unsettled world.

Best regards,
Asep Iqbal