About the Journal

The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies (CJAS) is a bi-annual, peer-reviewed, open-access, academic journal dedicated to the study of modern and contemporary Asia. We publish articles (6-8.000 words), reports from the field, research notes and book reviews. Emerging scholars is a new category at CJAS that highlights high-quality and peer-reviewed scholarship by graduate students. 

Our objective is to bridge the humanities and social sciences through comparative analysis while refining and disseminating methodologically and theoretically innovative research on Asia.

We inclusively define Asia as East-, Inner-, West-, Central-, South-, and Southeast Asia, along with global Asian cultural spheres and diasporas. At the same time we problematise the idea of ‘Asia’ as a unified region by attending to transnational dynamics, hybridities, social change, Asian diasporas and global cultural flows.

In early 2020, CJAS returned to the University of Copenhagen, where it first started more than thirty years ago. The return of the CJAS to the University of Copenhagen has entailed changes in the academic profile of the journal.

The journal welcomes submissions within the following three areas:

1. Cultural change, historical legacies and intellectual traditions

The journal explores diverse and novel forms of cultural coexistence and exchange, including inter-Asian and global Asian flows, through the lenses of transnationalism, (popular) culture, heritagisation, diasporas and migration.

2. Politics, society and sustainability

The journal examines global and local political economies, networked communities, ‘globalisation from below’, and ‘business in society’, elucidating sociopolitical values and environmental concerns pertinent for contemporary Asia and the world.

3. Innovative theoretical approaches

The journal provides a platform for critical analysis of modern and contemporary Asia. It welcomes articles that draw on innovative methodologies and engage in theory development bridging local and global perspectives through interdisciplinary and comparative foci, and unifying insights from area studies, anthropology, culture and media studies, history, sociology and political science.