* fotini stumbled upon and passed along…

The Chinese Overseas: Routledge Library of Modern China
By Hong Liu
Published by Taylor & Francis, 2006
ISBN 041533859X, 9780415338592
1600 pages

This collection gathers some of the most important, and previously disparate, publications in English on various dimensions of the Chinese Diaspora. While it includes sections on the historical evolution of the Chinese communities overseas, the focus of the selection is on the last half of the twentieth century. The last 25 years are a particular focus, since the launch of the reform policy in China, and against a backdrop of the accelerating pace of globalization.

With a population of more than 30 million, the Chinese living outside of the Mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan (called collectively the “Chinese Overseas” or the “Chinese Diaspora”) constitute an important force in the socio-economic transformation of modern China as well as in the countries they reside. They have also played a significant role in the interactions between China and these residing nations. Viewed from the perspective of international migration, the Chinese Overseas are one of the most dynamic immigrant groups in theworld, contributing to globalization and multi-culturalism.

Of certain interest include section 3.2: Problematizing Chineseness and its essay by Rey Chow called “On Chineseness as a Theoretical Problem”, as well as Nonini & Ong’s “Chinese Transnationalism as an Alternative Modernity”.