Gender and Tobacco in (Globalizing) Asia – Exorcizing the Ghosts of Dualistic Thought? Qian Hui Tan* Department of Geography, National University of Singapore Abstract This paper investigates the intersections between tobacco, gender and globalizing Asia. I argue that binary tropes like modernity / westernization-tradition and masculinity–femininity are incessantly invoked in a burgeoning tobacco-control literature focused on Asia. This tends to reify discursive and material gendered smoking stereotypes, as well as their underlying asymmetrical power rela- tions. Responding to this I chart out three ways in which dualistic gender ideologies can be rethought. Firstly, I attend to varieties within gender categories to account for more nuanced articulations of gender identities. I do this by demonstrating the co-imbrication between polyva- lent masculinities and smoking practices. Secondly, I am attuned to intersecting facets of smoking subjectivities – situated within a specific Asian cultural fabric – that complicate the easy conflation of masculinity with power, and femininity with disempowerment. Lastly, I contend that fleshing out the embodied aspects of gendered smoking practices can assist us in confounding polarized gender categories and their associated attributes. I conclude my paper with a discussion on the uneasy relationships between Asia, Westernization, gender and a possible move away from a Wes- tern-centric dualistic thinking. Introduction Tobacco-control and consumption have now become globalized concerns. But in responding to calls for the production of situated knowledges from below, as opposed to an universal view from nowhere (Haraway 1988), I embed my examination of the gendered dimensions of tobacco consumption in Asia. Some academics have also come to the realization that tobacco research is largely Anglo-American-centric, and such a perspective is congruent with a feminist politics trying to make amendments to ‘Western blindnesses and false universalisms’ (John 2007, 166). Therefore, I wish to recover gendered smoking narratives in specific cultural locations while attending to the mutual constitution of the local / national / global. Hopefully, this can nurture a more effective Asian cultural politics that subverts ‘the imperial, patriarchal and racist integument of globalization’ (Katz 2001, 1216; Nagar et al. 2002). This paper investigates the intersections between key terms like tobacco, gender and globalizing Asia 1 . Firstly, a literature review reveals that tobacco-control research tends to invoke binary tropes like modernity / westernization-tradition and masculinity–femininity. This may end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy rather than offering promises of a more pro- gressive gender politics. As a replacement, I propose that further research examines the conjunction between smoking, polyvalent gender subjectivities and between / within intersecting axes of difference that does not perpetuate homogenized understandings of a unitary gender category, such as ‘hegemonic (i.e. dominant) masculinity’. Secondly, gen- dered portrayals of smokers tend to disavow their material bodies, thereby effacing the 1 Sociology Compass 5/12 (2011): 1018–1028, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2011.00425.x ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd