Theme Issue on Asia Knowledge: Inside and Outside the Ivory Tower

This essay shares some narratives and motivations that led to this special set of JAEAR articles on how knowledge about Asia is generated, constructed and received. What are the benefits, as well as the challenges, of sharing academic research with a broad range of audiences and readerships? When academics move beyond the scholarly text to produce museum exhibits, documentary films, blogs, interviews with journalists, and other forms of media, the results can be highly rewarding but also, at times, at frustrating. The problems we experienced when sharing academic knowledge rarely related to the use of scholarly jargon or esoteric topics, but rather with audience ideologies, stereotypes, and expectations. Our stance as scholars is not necessarily appreciated outside the academy, and can occasionally antagonize the public. In some instances non-specialists misuse or misunderstand our research. This essay, and the articles that follow, ask us to reflect on the production of academic work and its reception in a variety of domains.