Vol. 3 No. 2 (2024)

The International Journal of Asian Studies (RIEA) continues to promote the study of historical, cultural, and social phenomena, among others, from various perspectives, of Asian societies and their presence in other continental latitudes. The dynamics of Asian cultural worlds, both in the present and in the past, reveals a complexity that becomes imperative to analyze with theoretical approaches and more complex methodological strategies. In doing so, it will be possible to have a more thorough analytical approach to their historical path and the challenges they face, by understanding these phenomena from a transnational standpoint.

The next issue of RIEA maintains that path already traced in the previous ones. Various phenomena are analyzed here, namely: contemporary academic reflection on Hinduism, the phenomenon of the religious transnationalization of Sikhs in America, the intersection between Pyrrhonism (of Greek origin) and Buddhism, the transformations experienced since the 1990s of Tibetan identity and its links with Indian cultures, the Korean community in Argentina and the mutations experienced in its mortuary rituals, by considering the reforms made by the Korean State in this regard, the construction of a social imaginary in the transition of Japan from the late Asuka period to the dawn of the Nara period, as well as the analysis of the academic networks articulated in Latin America focused on China. Likewise, the analysis of the experiences of Chinese language students at the Confucius Institute and the University of Costa Rica is contemplated. Besides, a portrait of the life and work of Dr. Roberto Marín Guzmán (1955-2024), a Costa Rican academic who was the great promoter of studies on the Arab and Islamic worlds in Costa Rica, whose body of work also transcended the region, is presented. Finally, in the reviews section, there is one of a work that delves into the academic trajectory of Asian studies in Spain.

Based on what has been outlined above, RIEA aims to continue nurturing, from the academia, a boost to this kind of studies, from an interdisciplinary perspective, on Asian societies. With this, it is hoped that the academic world on Asian studies will broaden its horizons of analysis and, in this way, that the Spanish-speaking world will contribute even more in this field of research.