Rethinking Chineseness: Translational Sinophone Identities in th ...

by local realities, diasporic imaginaries, and global awareness. By creating and recreating narrative tropes in their works, these writers have aestheticized their inability to locate a link to their imaginary homeland—China—in order to alleviate the experience of displacement and dislocation through literary mediations. This aestheticization facilitates the inscription of immigrant history and local experiences on the grand history of the imaginary homeland, thus illuminating the impact of globalization and transnationalism on the identity politics of the Nanyang Chinese. Consequently, Nanyang Chinese experiences surface as an intersubjective trajectory of the Sinophone beyond the influence of a China-centric discourse.

In the past decade, the concept of Chineseness has arisen as a topic widely discussed and debated among scholars such as Ien Ang, Rey Chow, Allen Chun, Shu-mei Shih, Wei-ming Tu, Wang Gungwu, and Ling-chi Wang. As a project aimed at rethinking the meaning of Chineseness in the context of the Nanyang Chinese, Rethinking Chineseness addresses Chineseness as a theme that poses a problem to scholars involved in ethnic and area studies. The Sinophone, in Shu-mei Shih’s conception, is an alternative to the discourse of Chineseness, for it encourages thinking of Sinophone cultures and identities as plural and as time and place specific. It also facilitates the cultural production of Sinophone cultures and their affinities in the age of globalization and transnationalism. The investigation of the productivity of the Sinophone in Rethinking Chineseness foregrounds the significance of Nanyang Chinese writers and their works within the larger scope of representation in the global cultural experience. As cultural products, their works directly and also symptomatically tackle questions related to Sinophone identities in a less metaphysical but phenomenological sense. Hence, a theoretical framework constructed around primary sources seems most appropriate for the overall agenda of Rethinking Chineseness.