Among other things, K-H Chen's "Asia as a Method" requires a reorientation of the peripheral dependence on theories originating in imperial settings. This chapter will suggest and demonstrate ways of departing from incumbent framings of ideas of self through the incorporation of Asian dimensions. Drawing on GH Mead's generalized other, an eastward extension of Edward Said's orientalism and Michel Foucault's technologies of the self, the possibilities and implications of Asian narratives and renditions of self offer new theoretical insights. The conceptual background is supplemented with qualitative research uncovering the experiences of students of Vietnamese background studying in Western offshore programs (i.e. in Vietnam). Findings of this research reveal how student identities are formed as students become self-forming agents harnessed by their robust agency and strong subjectivity. Additionally, insights from a range of previous empirical studies tend to highlight aspects of self power in Asian students' attempts to control their sojourning in Western institutions thereby constructing and reconstructing their identity and projecting their life trajectories. A reassessment is tendered with regard to the ways the formation of the self are couched from a viewpoint that is 'Asian' in the Chenian sense.
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