Dr Cangbai Wang, Reader in the University’s School of Humanities and Co-leader of the University’s Hub on Migration, Exile, Languages and Space (HOMELandS) has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Network Scheme to support his research into museums about Chinese diasporas around the world.
The project, titled Global Diasporic Chinese Museums Network Initiative, builds upon Dr Wang’s research of Museum Representations of the Chinese Diasporas. It aims to develop a global network of diasporic Chinese museums, starting intellectual dialogue and collaboration between museums around the world.
The research will bring together museum curators, scholars, policy makers, and other stakeholders to exchange experiences and share insights into collecting, curating, exhibition practice and public engagement. It also hopes to generate impact on public policymaking and interdisciplinary research of migration in the Chinese context and beyond.
These aims will be achieved through an extensive programme of activities, including an online public talk series on Chinese museums, on-site workshops held in Singapore and London which will discuss the key issues emerging from the public talk series, and a virtual international convention to conclude the project. The project will also have an open access website that will act as a virtual home base for network museums and host an online exhibition comparing Chinese diasporic experiences around the world.
The findings of the project will be shared in an edited volume, a peer-reviewed journal special issue as well as policy reports. There are also plans to set up an International Association of Diasporic Chinese Museums when the project has finished to give the museum network a permanent institutional structure, cementing the value and sustainability of the project.
Dr Wang said: “I am glad to see that my research into migration and heritage has been recognised by the Research Council. I hope the project could transform the development of Chinese diaspora museums, offer fertile ground for developing interdisciplinary research of museum and migration beyond the nation-state framework and generate wide-ranging and long-term impact that makes a difference to the research and cultural practices in this area and to the wider society.”
The research team is composed of the Principal Investigator Cangbai Wang of University of Westminster, Co-Investigator Yow Cheun Hoe of Nanyang Technological University of Singapore where he is Director of the Chinese Heritage Centre, and the Project Coordinator Zhang Huimei of the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. The project will commence on Saturday 1 April 2023 and last for a year and eight months.
Dr Wang is a also a member of the Contemporary China Centre (CCC) research group at the University.
Find out more about HOMELandS’ research at the University of Westminster.
