This article advances work on the ‘British Chinese’ by reconfiguring the boundaries of the field and expanding it beyond the cultural and linguistic transformations of an ‘ethnic community’. Instead, I examine new pan-Asian political formations and situate them within wider anti-racist organising in Britain. First, I examine the birth of ‘British East and Southeast Asianness’ as an emphatically political identity that contests racialised notions of ‘the Chinese’ as a passive model minority and repositions us as political agents of change. Second, I examine the crafting of a political community, in which a pan-Asian identity emerges as a contestation of the borders of ‘Chineseness’ and its policing, while maintaining a Chinese hegemony. Third, I identify distinct political repertoires of anti-racism within this ‘community’, a more radical and a more integrationist approach, which highlights the challenges of political mobilisation, and is shaped by a continued abject status. Finally, I examine the role of political love and care as a means of mobilisation, through which a radical politics of affirmation and refusal is crafted. In doing so, I re-envision the political horizons of the so-called ‘British Chinese’, while shedding light on the current complexities, transformations and solidarities of communities within and beyond Chineseness.
The Benefit of Failure: On the Development of Ostrava’s Culture
