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- Convenor:
-
Tetsu Ichikawa
(Rikkyo University)
- Discussants:
-
Yosuke Shimazono
(Osaka University)
Yuko Mio (Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies )
- Location:
- 205
- Start time:
- 18 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel will discuss contemporary characteristics of Chinese overseas in East and Southeast countries by discussing how they have formatted ecological and social environments which surround them.
Long Abstract:
This panel will discuss contemporary characteristics of Chinese overseas in East and Southeast countries by discussing how they have formatted ecological and social environments which surround them. Chinese overseas are often regarded that they have various types of networks among them and construct transnational social space around the world by many scholars. As this presupposition has close affinity with transnationalism studies and globalization studies, anthropological studies of Chinese overseas, or so called Chinese diaspora studies, have attracted attention of many scholars. Moreover, with the raise of the People's Republic of China in the international area since the 2000s, the Chinese overseas studies became popular research topic among many academic disciplines. However, if anthropologists conduct ethnographic research of Chinese overseas, it is necessary to consider how to research and analyze macro level phenomena from anthropological framework which is based on micro level approach.
The presenters of this panel will discuss how Chinese overseas conceive and adapt to the surrounding environment to understand the interconnectedness of micro and macro level societies. By comparing the participants' research findings, we will analyze how to understand the transnational phenomena such as Chinese diaspora's communities and networks. The following specific case-studies will be discussed: Chinese community in the Philippines, transnational activities of Chinese in Myanmar and Taiwan, interaction between Chinese and indigenous people in East Malaysia, and a Chinese school and students in Japan.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper will provide an introductory discussion for a comparative study on how newly introduced crops had enabled Chinese to grow and emigrate their population, and how the mobility of Chinese population has formatted ecological and social environments around them in East and Southeast Asia.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I will provide an introductory discussion for a comparative study on how the mobility of Chinese population has formatted ecological and social environments around them in East and Southeast Asia.
Alfred W. Crosby has discussed "Columbian Exchange" as a process after Columbus, in which newly introduced crops had enabled European to grow and emigrate their population, then they had transformed much of Americas, Asia, and Africa into ecological version of Europe. As our panel will discuss, we can find a similar process in the long history of the mobility of Chinese population since 16th Century up to the present.
This paper, as well as this panel, will call this process as "Chinese Exchange," and will examine how crops introduced from Americas had supported and encourage the population growth and emigration, and how Chinese population has formatted ecological and social environments along historical periods; 16-17th, 18th, 19th-20th Centuries and the present, in order to give a tentative definition to, and raise issues on "Chinese Exchange".
In the 16-17th, as Prof. Deng Xiaohua pointed out, sweet potatoes from America via the Philippines islands, had triggered drastically population growth and emigration in Southern China, and brought the staple food, the recipe, or a sort of dining arts to places to emigrate. Thereafter, they had organized and developed familism, filial piety, ancestral worship, marriage and reproducation, and social relationship for formatting ecological and social environments around them.
Paper short abstract:
The aim of this presentation is to discuss diversification of Chinese communities in an upriver area of Sarawak, Malaysia from their relationship with the natural environment and other ethnic groups.
Paper long abstract:
Most of the studies of Malaysian Chinese tend to research in urban Chinese communities and confirm their analytical focus within the Chinese communities. Therefore the previous studies do not pay enough attention to the Chines in rural area. There are some report about the interrelationship between the Chinese and indigenous people in Sarawak. However these reports are fragmented and do not explain the nature of the Chinese communities in Sarawak.
This presentation takes Chinese communities in an upriver area of Sarawak as a case study and discusses two topics. One topic is the variety of the Chinese communities in this area. Second topic is the interrelationship between the Chinese and the indigenous peoples in this area. By discussing these topics, I will try to analyze the nature of the diversification process of the Chinese from perspective of utilization of environment surrounding them.
According to the historical research in Sarawak, there may be a possibility that Chinese first arrived at upriver area where was favorable to trade with the indigenous peoples, and then gradually removed to the downriver area. This migration pattern may affect diversify of the Chinese communities in the upriver area of Sarawak, and influenced the ethnic characters of the Chinese. From this point of view, this presentation will try to describe the sub ethnic diversification by analyzing the Chinese migration and settlement in this area.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses how Muslim Chinese overseas interconnect their meaning of migratory lives through the process of adaptation to their surrounding politic-cultural environments.
Paper long abstract:
This paper focuses on multiple facet of adaptation of Chinese overseas to the surrounding environment. Especially I would like to focus on several dimension of political adaptation of those Muslim Chinese overseas who scattered in a transnational social space among China, Myanmar and Taiwan. Muslim Chinese overseas in this paper indicates a population who migrated from Yunnan province of China to upper Myanmar (and in some case to Northern Thailand) from the end of 19th to the mid-20th century at their first stage of migration. After migrated to Myanmar, they again re-migrated to Taiwan in the 1980s for economic and political reason.
The process of their migration and re-migration caused and has been causing their adaption to surrounding political environments. Surrounding political environments in this paper include political entities such as British Colonial government, Chinese Qing official, Burmese military junta, and Overseas Chinese policy of ROC government (Taiwan). On the macro level, Muslim Chinese overseas negotiate their socio-cultural aspects with those political entities and transform their politico-cultural systems into the one that could be suitably located in the system. On the micro level, various aspects of everyday lives in terms of the relationship with indigenous ethnic groups in the area should be paid more attention. Muslim Chinese overseas interconnects their meaning of migratory lives through the process of adaptation to their surrounding politic-cultural environments.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discussing migrant relationships dimensions that are affected by the system of exchange of resources, determination of the rights and obligations, and mechanisms problem solving individually or group.
Paper long abstract:
In migration studies have regarded social networks as the key to understanding migration processes and considered as essential for the social mobility of migrants. Not only used as a strategic survival in the host country but the ways social networks may help them get resources to start businesses also. In socioeconomic perspectives, access to a cohesive social network tends migrants to spur entrepreneurship. They tend to form tight social networks both with local fellow or nationals fellow. These networks facilitated the entrepreneur's activity by providing capital, support (mentoring), knowledge (access to sufficient capital) and a reliable supply and customer base are often key factors in the decision to undertake an entrepreneurial endeavor. These networks can also make up for the fact that migrants often do not have the contacts and local understanding of regulations and culture doing business in host countries. Besides socioeconomic, as an anthropologist studies Indonesian migrant entrepreneurship in Taiwan, I also found other interesting and influenced network in the broad linkages, such as, systems of households, bands, lineages, communities, corporations, or governments, not only in the individual persons linked context. An Indonesian entrepreneur in Taiwan is generally formed a social network, both formal and non formal, based on personal or group networks, religion, ethnic or hometown in Indonesia, or association base in the city where they work, to build networks entrepreneurship. Previously, personal network entrepreneurship is getting so much attention network analysis to clarify the more complex wholes migrant network across borders.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses preliminary results of the on-going research on child-raising practices among Chinese in Japan. By adopting the family lens I try to understand how individuals conceive of their leaving the home, settling in the new country and moving between the two.
Paper long abstract:
The contemporary migration from China to Japan is taking place not only against the backdrop of intensive economical exchange between the two countries but also political tensions and land disputes. Nonetheless, Chinese have become the most numerous migrant group in Japan in the last several years. The difference in migration paths, place of origin and timing of migration conditions the way how contemporary Chinese migrants carve out the modes of being and belonging within Japanese society which is still largely construed as a homogeneous rather than a multicultural one. But instead of dwelling on questions of assimilation, integration or multiculturalism I propose to analyze the Chinese migration to Japan and its effects through Chinese migrants' family practices.
In my paper I will discuss preliminary results of the on-going research on child-raising practices among this population. By adopting the family lens I try to understand how families in migration adapt to new circumstances and reinvent old practices as well as how individuals conceive of their leaving the home country, settling in the new country and moving between the two, especially as members of a family unit. Special attention will be paid to the family-work nexus of these families by illustrating how migrants' family practices and strategies overlap and connect to business and work related decisions.