Abstract
This chapter maps the terrain of existing research on British Chinese culture, positioning it in relation to work on Chinese and Asian diasporas globally and on British multiculture. It briefly charts emerging debates on British Chinese culture in the 1990s and its marginalization in academic work. It reflects on challenges of knowledge production on British Chineseness within the context of institutions that may support, if not, reproduce racial inequalities. Finally it situates British Chinese cultural politics within the specific historical context of British multiculturalism, particularly in its neoliberal forms, from the 1980s through to present-day discussions of the ordinary multiculture of postcolonial Britain.
Author names are in alphabetical order
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Notes
- 1.
Parker (1995); D. Parker (1998), ‘Rethinking British Chinese Identities’, in T. Skelton and G. Valentine (eds.), Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures (London: Routledge, 66–82); D. Parker and M. Song (2006), ‘New Ethnicities Online: Reflexive Racialisation and the Internet,’ Sociological Review 54:3, 575–594; D. Parker and M. Song (2009), ‘New Ethnicities and the Internet: Belonging and the Negotiation of Difference in Multicultural Britain,’ Cultural Studies, 23:4, 583–604; B. Francis and L. Archer (2004), ‘British Chinese Pupils’ Constructions of Education, Gender and Post-16 Pathways’, ESRC Report, Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University; B. Francis and L. Archer (2005), ‘British-Chinese Pupils’ and Parents’ Constructions of the Value of Education’, British Educational Research Journal 31:1, 89–108; B. Francis and L. Archer (2005), ‘Negotiating the Dichotomy of Boffin and Triad: British Chinese Pupils’ Constructions of “laddism”’, Sociological Review 53:3, 495–521.
- 2.
For a view on how race and empire are deeply entwined in cultural memories of war, see Francis (2014).
- 3.
For George Bush’s uses of the Second World War to lend credibility to the “war on terror,” see Noon (2004).
- 4.
Katie Hill and Cangbai Wang organized the conference The Spectre of China: Art and Cultural Identities at the University of Westminster, London, 23 June 2009. The conference sought to revisit critical cultural debates about diasporic Chinese identities in the field of artistic and cultural practice and to problematize the picture of “Chinese” art practices internationally by bringing an alternative view of China into play.
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Thorpe, A., Yeh, D. (2018). Introduction: Contesting British Chinese Culture. In: Thorpe, A., Yeh, D. (eds) Contesting British Chinese Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71159-1_1
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