Reframing Overseas Chinese Archaeology as Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora

2020 ◽  
pp. 35-58
Author(s):  
Douglas E. Ross
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Migration Process ◽  
General Phenomenon ◽  
Chinese Archaeology ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Chinese Migration ◽  
Interpretive Framework

This paper argues in favor of renaming Overseas Chinese archaeology “Chinese diaspora archaeology” and adopting an explicitly diasporic theoretical and interpretive framework. It introduces and defines diaspora as a general phenomenon, outlines key features of early Chinese migration beginning in the sixteenth century, and explores debates over characterizing this migration process and overseas Chinese communities as diasporic. Finally, it introduces examples of how archaeologists have incorporated a diasporic framework into their research and offers a vision of what an archaeology of the Chinese diaspora might look like and what benefits in can offer the discipline.

Conceptualizing Chinese Migration and Chinese Overseas: The Contribution of Wang Gungwu

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianli Huang
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Conceptual Level ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The World ◽  
Chinese Overseas ◽  
China Studies ◽  
Chinese Migration ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe movement of people leaving and returning to China from the second half of the19th century to the present is of such a phenomenal magnitude and complexity that Wang Gungwu has devoted a lifetime of his scholarship to tracking and explaining the various cycles of Chinese migration and settlement. Through this effort, he has not only contributed to China studies in general but has also pioneered and become the doyen of a new sub-field in the study of Chinese communities located outside of China and scattered all over the world. This has been a long and rewarding engagement for him, but not one without its moments of difficulties, especially at the conceptual level. Centering on Wang’s pool of scholarly writings and reminiscences, this article discusses his vigorous examination of the accuracy and appropriateness of various terms of analysis, such as “Nanyang Chinese,” “Overseas Chinese,” “Huaqiao,” “Greater China,” “Chinese Diaspora,” and “Chinese Overseas.” This discussion on terminology will also be used to reflect on Wang’s position on larger issues such as the danger of emotive responses to inappropriate labelling, the role of scholars in facilitating a better understanding of the contemporary world, as well as the relationship between scholarship and politics.

A Special Intermittence and Continuity in Local History: The Chinese Diaspora and Their Hometown in Battlefield Quemoy during 1949-1960s

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiang Bo-wei
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Local History ◽  
The State ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Community Power ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract From 1949, Quemoy became the battlefront between the warring Nationalists and Communists as well as the frontline between Cold War nations. Under military rule, social and ideological control suppressed the community power of traditional clans and severed their connection with fellow countrymen living abroad. For 43 long years up until 1992, Quemoy was transformed from an open hometown of the Chinese diaspora into a closed battlefield and forbidden zone. During the war period, most of the Quemoy diasporic Chinese paid close attention to the state of their hometown including the security of their family members and property. In the early 1950s, they tried to keep themselves informed of the situation in Quemoy through any available medium and build up a new channel of remittances. Furthermore, as formal visits of the overseas Chinese were an important symbol of legitimacy for the KMT, Quemoy emigrants had been invited by the military authority to visit their hometown since 1950. This was in fact the only channel for the Chinese diaspora to go home. Using official files, newspapers and records of oral histories, this article analyzes the relationship between the Chinese diaspora and the battlefield, Quemoy, and takes a look at the interactions between family and clan members of the Chinese diaspora during 1949-1960s. It is a discussion of a special intermittence and continuity of local history.

Can the Chinese Diaspora Speak?

2021 ◽  
pp. 127-142
Author(s):  
Qiao Collective
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
The Face ◽  
Discursive Context ◽  
Red Guards

The Chinese diaspora is compelled either to prostrate to an edifying project of assimilation to U.S. liberal democracy, or be branded as illiberal "Red Guards" unfit for serious political discourse. This discursive context has long mobilized overseas Chinese to affirm the universalism of Western liberalism in opposition to a Chinese despotism defined either by dynastic backwardness or communist depravity. Can overseas Chinese speak for themselves in the face of the West's "hegemonic right to knowledge?" Or will all such speech that challenges U.S. presuppositions of liberal selfhood and Chinese despotism simply be tuned out as illiberal noise?

The Chinese of Papua New Guinea: From Settlers to Sojourners

1997 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 317-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Inglis
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Chinese Population ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Chinese Case ◽  
Chinese Migration ◽  
International Investors

The renewed interest in diaspora populations in this age of globalization has inevitably led to a re-examination of the Chinese diaspora which, especially in Southeast Asia, has achieved prominence through its association with the ëAsian economic miracle.í This article examines the contemporary transformation of the Papua New Guinea part of this Chinese diaspora from a long settled, homogeneous community into a highly segmented and fragmented sojourner population. Integral to this process has been the intersection of post-colonial nationalism with the emergence of new opportunities for economic development attracting Asian and other international investors. The new sojourner Chinese population differs in significant respects from the sojourner populations associated with much nineteenth and early twentieth century Chinese migration. A particular feature which emerges from the exploration of the variant patterns of Chinese migration and settlement in Papua New Guinea is the need to re-examine the nature of ìChineseî identity and frequent assumptions about the characteristics of Chinese diaspora populations. The Papua New Guinea Chinese case highlights the diversity in the way the Chinese identities related to the concept of a ëhomelandí as well as the very different ways in which segments of the same diaspora group relate to each other and to Chinese elsewhere.

What Is This “Chinese” in Overseas Chinese? Sojourn Work and the Place of China's Minority Nationalities in Extraterritorial Chinese-ness

2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 423-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Vasantkumar
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Chinese Community ◽  
Qing Empire ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
Chinese Nationalism ◽  
Chinese Nation ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multiethnic Populations

This essay argues that to adequately answer the question its title poses, anthropological approaches to national and transnational China(s) must be grounded in the history of Qing imperial expansion. To this end, it compares and explores the connections between three examples of the “sojourn work” that has gone into making mobile, multiethnic populations abroad into Overseas Chinese. The first example deals with recent official attempts to project the People's Republic of China's multiethnic vision of Chinese-ness beyond its national borders. The second highlights the importance of the early Chinese nation-state in the making of Overseas Chinese community in Southeast Asia in the first decades of the twentieth century. The final case foregrounds the late imperial routes of nascent Chinese nationalism to argue that, in contrast to much of the current rhetoric on the Chinese “diaspora,” national and transnational modes of Chinese community emerged together from the ruins of the Qing empire. Together the three examples point to the need to question the usual ways scholars have conceptualized (Overseas) Chinese-ness.

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