In this event, author Dr Cangbai Wang (University of Westminster, United Kingdom) will talk about his research findings with guest discussant Associate Professor Yow Cheun Hoe (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore).
Museum Representations of Chinese Diasporas is the first book to analyse the recent upsurge in museums on Chinese diasporas in China. Examining heritage-making beyond the nation state, the book provides a much-needed, critical examination of China’s engagement with its diasporic communities.
Drawing on fieldwork in more than ten museums, as well as interviews with museum practitioners and archival study, Wang offers a timely analysis of the complex ways in which Chinese diasporas are represented in the museum space of China, the ancestral homeland. Arguing that diasporic heritage is highly ambivalent and introducing a diasporic perspective to the study of cultural heritage, this book opens up a new avenue of inquiry into the study and management of cultural heritage in China and beyond.
Wang sheds new light on the dynamic between China and Chinese diasporas through the lens of the museum. Museum Representations of Chinese Diasporas takes a transnational perspective that will draw attention to the under-researched connections between heritage, mobility and meaning in a global context. As such, this cross-disciplinary work will be of interest to scholars and students working in the museum and heritage studies fields, as well as those studying Asia, China, migration and diaspora, anthropology, history and culture.
This event is organised by Contemporary China Centre and HOMELandS (Hub on Migration, Exile, Language and Spaces).
This event is free to attend but you must register your place in advance. A Zoom link will be sent to your registration email address before the event.
About the speakers
Cangbai Wang
Cangbai Wang is Reader in Chinese Studies and co-leader of HOMELandS (Hub on Migration, Exile, Language and Spaces) at University of Westminster, UK.
He has a long-standing interest in the research of transnational Chinese migration, including return migration to China, trans-border mobility between mainland China and Hong Kong and migration related museum and heritage studies.
He is the author of Life is Elsewhere: Stories of the Indonesian Chinese in Hong Kong (HKU, 2006, in Chinese) and Museum Representations of Chinese Diasporas: Migration Histories and the Cultural Heritage of the Homeland (Routledge 2020).
His articles have appeared on leading international journals including Modern China, China Information, Asia Pacific Viewpoints, International Journal of Heritage Studies, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal and major Chinese language journals such as Huaqiao Huaren Lishi Yanjiu.
He is the co-editor of Routledge Research on Museum and Heritage in Asia.
Yow Cheun Hoe
Yow Cheun Hoe is associate professor at Nanyang Technological University, where he is Head of the Program of Chinese, Director of the Chinese Heritage Centre, and Director of the Centre for Chinese Language and Culture. He is a chief editor for International Journal of Diasporic Chinese Studies and a member of Editorial Board of Journal of Chinese Overseas.
His academic interests and areas include Chinese migrants and diaspora, qiaoxiang (Overseas Chinese homelands) ties, and diasporic Chinese literature. His monographs include Migration Trajectories and Diasporic Discourses: Multiples Contexts of Ethnic Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia) (Shanghai Sanlian Shudia, 2014); Guangdong and Chinese Diaspora: The Changing Landscape of Qiaoxiang (Routledge, 2013).
His articles appear in important journals such as Journal of Contemporary China, Modern Asian Studies, Asian Ethnicity, Cross-Cultural Studies, Changjiang Xueshu, and Waiguo Wenxue Yanjiu.
