In Flux: Transnational Shifts in Asian Canadian Writing by Roy Miki (review)

Roy Miki's In Flux collection begins 'in flux': in the process of introducing and contextualising his essays - which continually constitute and trouble the notion of 'Asian Canadian writing' - Miki anticipates the radical shifts in the creative and critical discourse which he knows will follow. He then expresses the hope that 'the critical complexities of writing and reading that have held [his] attention in these essays - and which [he] see[s] as a collective concern in Asian Canadian writing - will continue to resonate with future readers' (p. xiv). I am confident that In Flux will play no small part in enabling this critical and creative engagement from future reading communities who will benefit from the compelling and innovative thinking Miki provides.

In this collection, Miki demonstrates the ways in which 'Asian Canadian writing', as a critical category and literary praxis, is always in flux: the terms 'Asian', 'Canadian' and 'writing' have to be understood as continually provisional and contingent upon specific and changing material and intellectual conditions. For example, in his first essay, which addresses the ambiguous position of Roy Kiyooka within the discourse of nation formation, he asserts that 'Asian Canadian can begin to signify, in the heterogeneity it implies, a provisional body of texts whose locations are in flux but pointing towards future geocultural configurations' (p. 27). His analysis of Kiyooka's position as a writer 'athwarted' (a knowing position of belonging and not-belonging to the nation state) pays attention to the cultural forces which attempt but fail to contain Kiyooka - as a token 'ethnic' writer brought in to serve the cause of official multiculturalism and as a stable 'Japanese Canadian'. Kiyooka's self-reflexive position of being 'athwarted' provides the foundation for an interrogation of CanLit as an institution producing literature; this involves fascinating readings of numerous important and radical writings, including the work of Hiromi Goto, Fred Wah, Winston C. Kam, Larissa Lai and Rita Wong.

The value of this collection depends upon but moves beyond the close attention Miki pays to this intriguing range of writers. It also lies in the difficult task he undertakes in formulating a kind of manifesto for an ethical critical practice which has, at its heart, a striving for social justice and an openness to creativity. This involves an idea of 'creative critical reading' that continually exposes and challenges: the social processes of racialisation that have been so instrumental in producing the cultural effects of Canada's preoccupation with its national identity; and the neoliberal logic of market forces which now dominates the way academics are funded and valued in the public domain as represented in Canada, for example, by funding bodies such as SSHRC. Ultimately, his project is pedagogical, but 'broader than the institutional confines of our teaching and research'; he aims to 'encompass a movement back and forth between the confines and the contingencies of local/global networks' (p. 150). This involves bringing creative thinking, reading and teaching into the pedagogical spaces, rather than valuing the rational alone. Miki implores us to become attentive to the contingencies and surprises of our bodily reactions to the multiplicity and flexibility of literary texts in order to 'consciously initiate ethical acts that have justice and social equity as modes of desire' (p. 258). In Flux, with unusual insight, flair and ethical drive, begins to show us how we might do this.