Events

This workshop is organized by Asia Research Institute; with funding support from Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology) at National University of Singapore; and in collaboration with History Department and the Research Center for the Study of Chinese Overseas in the Peking University, China.

Studies of the Chinese diaspora have entered into a new era, not only in the spatial and temporal sense of the research subject, but also in terms of a generational shift in scholars. Previously, approaches in this field have been rather confined by the fundamental parameters of China (as the place of ancestral origin) and of the host countries (as residential locality of migrants) interacting under the ever-changing circumstances of world politics (especially decolonization, inter-state bilateral relations, and the Cold War). Another overarching structural inhibition was an essentially unidirectional outflow of Chinese migrants from China to other countries. Hence, earlier studies of the Chinese diaspora have tended to be generally embedded within the framework of conventional political economy, focusing on the usual themes of assimilation and integration, ethnicity and nation-building, as well as geo-politics and ideology. There is also a tendency to be constrained within the narrow local or regional perspective, seldom crossing disciplinary strictures and venturing out onto the global stage or into the realm of comparative studies.

Over the recent two to three decades, we have witnessed profound structural transformations. The world has become much more ‘flattened,’ with an unprecedented intensification in the transnational mobility and connectivity of people, capital, goods and ideas. China has quickly emerged as a major global power and its image to the outside world has turned into a more positive one. The framing of a ‘China Dream’ for its 21^st century journey is made more tangible by its proposed grand strategies to reinvigorate its ancient land and maritime Silk Roads and to launch an Asia-Pacific Free Trade Area. Migration is no longer unidirectional as an increasingly large number of talented Chinese Overseas of both China and foreign nationalities have chosen to return from abroad to work and live in China, sometimes in partnership with non-Chinese foreigners. There is also a prominent layer of new wealthy Chinese migrating out of China and making a profound impact abroad on the neo-liberal capitalist environment. Relationship dynamics are thus much more complex and no longer centering on nation-states and bilateral inter-state relations, but drawn towards transnational routes and networks connecting multiple nodal points. Southeast Asia with its historical concentration of early Chinese Overseas communities remains an important hub, but it has been complemented by growing new clusters of Chinese in other parts of Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. All these have encouraged cross-disciplinary and comparative inquiries on themes relating to transnationalism, translocality, Chineseness, hybridity, business networks, linguistic transformation, etc.

Therefore, it is now timely and useful to capture some recent trends within the studies of Chinese diaspora to see whether they reflect the vastly changing global situations and to ask ourselves whether they will lead to a better understanding of China and the world and of the nature of Chinese diaspora. Two workshops are being planned, an English-language one in Asia Research Institute in 2015 and a Chinese-language session in Peking University, China, in 2016. Specifically, the Singapore workshop will first seek to map the new groups and social categories that can be identified among the Chinese diaspora. Second, it will focus on the intersections of the older categories of analysis, viz. ethnicity, assimilation, nation-building etc, with the more recent trends of globalization, new directional flows and spaces of migration, hyper-connectivity, and the rise of China. How would these intersections permit us to grasp the experiences, identities and realities of the contemporary Chinese diaspora?

REGISTRATION

Admission is free, and seats are available on a first come, first served basis. We would greatly appreciate if you register your interest in attending to Ms Valerie Yeo via email: valerie.yeo@nus.edu.sg.

CONTACT DETAILS

Workshop Convenors

Prof Prasenjit DUARA
Director, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
E | aridir@nus.edu.sg

Assoc Prof HUANG Jianli
Deputy Director, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
E | huang.jianli@nus.edu.sg

Prof WU Xiao An
Department of History, Peking University, China
Director, Research Center for the Study of Chinese Overseas, Peking University, China
E | wu2@pku.edu.cn

Secretariat

Ms Valerie YEO
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
E | valerie.yeo@nus.edu.sg