How do we understand the roots of modern identities and subjectivities (citizen, labour migrant, artist, member of a global faith community) and the cosmopolitan imaginaries and practices embraced and generated in the Asia Pacific region? Writing from a range of disciplines, and diverse sites, the authors explore the ways in which identities are recognized and contested, subjectivities dislodged and reconstituted in the contemporary world, and the role of dialogic scholarly practices in engaging, stimulating and promoting emergent subjectivities and identities.