ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the context of Asian Australian Studies and its activist practices in this higher education context of digital scholarship and politicised engagement. It examines the negotiated tensions between traditional components of academic networks and the advent of digital scholarship in a field characterised by diasporic flows. It also examines in particular the academic activism associated with the Asian Australian Studies Research Network (AASRN). The chapter presents an 'autoethnography otherwise', or layered account, that combines the author's experiences in leading the academic research network, discussing research on activism and public scholarship and examining diasporic Asian community politics. The AASRN is an organisation generated from distinctly activist imperatives. Asian Australian scholarly activism today happens across multiple platforms and with an increasingly diverse range of intellectual actors. Part of the essential work for building a strong critical community around providing counter-narratives and alternative cultural views is developing broader intellectual and political literacy for these issues.
