Chinese southern diaspora studies_Issue 6 (for Volume 6)
No Thumbnail Available
Volume
6
Number
6
Issue Date
2013
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
1834-609X
Journal Volume
Articles
Editor's Introduction [Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, Volume 6, 2013]
(Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, The Australian National University, 2013) Bagnall, Kate; Couchman, Sophie; Bagnall, Kate; Couchman, Sophie
編者的話 = Editors’ Introduction [Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, Volume 6, 2013]
(Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, The Australian National University, 2013) Bagnall, Kate; Couchman, Sophie; Bagnall, Kate; Couchman, Sophie
Landscapes of Memory and Forgetting: Indigo and Shek Quey Lee
(Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, The Australian National University, 2013) Bagnall, Kate; Bagnall, Kate; Couchman, Sophie
In this illustrated essay I explore the intertwined histories of two rural settlements ©
Indigo in north-eastern Victoria, Australia, and Shek Quey Lee in Xinhui county, Guangdong, China
© to consider how the rich story of Chinese migration and settlement in Australia has been
remembered and forgotten, both in China and Australia. With the growth in interest in the history
and heritage of the Chinese in Australia over the past twenty years, we can no longer say that it is a
©forgotten© history, yet there are still challenges to researching and telling it. One of these is for
Chinese Australian history to be seen as integral to the broader narrative of Australia©s past.
Another is being able to connect the Chinese and Australian parts of the story, to broaden the
scope of our research beyond national boundaries to create a truly shared history. This essay
suggests that drawing on the small stories of individual people is one way to bring together the
connections across time and place, and between landscapes and people often thought of as distant
and fundamentally different.
Webs of Association: Examining the Overseas Chinese Social Landscape of Early Cooktown
(Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, The Australian National University, 2013) Rains, Kevin; Bagnall, Kate; Couchman, Sophie
Many studies of overseas Chinese have regarded ethnic or cultural identity as being the
overarching principle structuring how overseas Chinese communities organised and defined
themselves and how they were perceived and treated by outsiders. Overseas Chinese communities
have been regarded as homogenous, inward-looking and impermeable. However, recent research,
particularly in the realm of social and family history, points to more complex and diverse
relationships. This paper, which is based on an historical archaeology doctoral thesis, proposes a
different model based on social agency and network theory. Using the case study of Cooktown in
Far North Queensland, where a large and thriving overseas Chinese community existed in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it shows how individual people, Chinese and non-Chinese
alike, exercised their agency to create their own social worlds. These worlds consisted of networks
or webs of association through which people obtained their material needs, accrued and exerted
social power and continually defined their social identity. Ethnicity was only one among a range of
influences on the nature of these networks; others included kinship, class, gender, political
allegiance and business alliances. The networks fragmented ethnic groups as well as crossed
ethnic boundaries, as Cooktown©s rugged frontier environment fostered some very close
connections of mutual support between Chinese and non-Chinese. Collectively these networks built
a dynamic, multi-layered and nuanced social landscape
Transnational Lives: Colonial Immigration Restrictions and the White Australia Policy in the Riverina District of New South Wales, 1860-1960
(Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, The Australian National University, 2013) McGowan, Barry; Bagnall, Kate; Couchman, Sophie
In Australia the historical debate on the effects of immigration restrictions on the Chinese people has focused largely on the White Australia Policy. By contrast, in this paper I focus on the relatively neglected topic of intercolonial migration and compare the impact of the colonial immigration restrictions of the 1880s and the White Australia Policy, using as an example the Riverina district of New South Wales. Many Chinese people were severely disadvantaged by the colonial immigration restrictions, particularly if they had strong commercial links on both sides of the NSW©Victorian border or needed special assistance from their compatriots. The local reaction in the Riverina to the tightening of anti-Chinese restrictions in 1888 in particular sits at odds with the popular impression of unrelenting animosity towards Chinese people in the pre-Federation period. Many white residents of the Riverina viewed the legislation with disdain and pleaded the case for change.
Federation solved the problem of intercolonial migration, but it created many other difficulties for Chinese residents and this time the Riverina press was silent. With the same resilience and initiative of their forebears, however, many Chinese worked around these new impositions. Influence, money and friendship were, however, critical and those less well connected or affluent were at a much greater disadvantage. Intimidation from officials with its attendant risks of resentment and bitterness may have been of little concern in the colonial and post-colonial period, but today it should be, for the stakes are much higher.
Description
Keywords
Source
Type
Book Title
Entity type
JournalIssue