Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates how the Overseas Chinese Academics in South Africa interact with the Rainbow Nation's diverse cultures and how they negotiate with the mechanisms that continue to safeguard their Chinese identity, contributing a Chinese voice to the debate on contemporary essentialisms.

Paper long abstract:

The soaring economic development of China following its 'opening to the outside world' policy has established the country as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and has provided valuable opportunities for its people to explore the globe and for the world to understand Chinese culture. The Confucius Institutes are China's central mechanisms for the constitution of soft power. By 2017, over 500 CIs have been established worldwide. The Confucius Institute is a fine example of what Jean and John Comaroff (2009) point out as the commodification and corporatisation of cultural identities. What is considered to be Chinese culture is packaged into the essentialist corporation of CIs as commodities to be promoted worldwide.

Drawing from my ethnographic study on the Confucius Institutes in South Africa from 2017 to 2018, Being Chinese in a Rainbow Nation investigate how the Overseas Chinese Academics in South Africa interact with the Rainbow Nation's diverse cultures, but more importantly, how they reflect on and negotiate with the mechanisms that continue to safeguard their Chinese identity, as many of them ponder for the first time: what does it mean to be Chinese, and can they be more than Chinese? The issue will be approached from perspectives of culture, space, censorship and self-censorship, contributing a Chinese voice to the debate on contemporary essentialisms.