Refiguring Chineseness: Ethnic subjectivities in liminal limbo

Meerwald, A.M.L. (2000) Refiguring Chineseness: Ethnic subjectivities in liminal limbo. In: Refiguring Postcoloniality: Beyond Literature Conference, 18 February 2000, Murdoch University, Murdoch, W.A

Abstract

This paper is based on research that deploys the concept of hybridity in its investigation of practices of Chineseness by diasporic subjects in the Australian location. More specifically, it applies Gloria Anzaldua, Homi Bhabha and Trinh Minh-ha's hybridising notion of being neither the one nor the other in its interrogation of Chineseness in this third space of ethnic liminal limbo. From the perspective of ethnic liminality, it examines the normalising and hybridising practices of Chineseness that emerge in the lived experiences of women, and explores the usefulness of this third borderland space of blurred boundaries in the translation of diasporic ethnic subjectivities, focusing on the processes of subjectification that produce an ethnic newness that is new but familiar. This position is stated in the context of cultural hybridity in multicultural Australia that witnesses a production of ethnic subjectivities in a state of flux. This third space of liminal limbo, the focus of this conference paper, acknowledges the incommensurable and conflictual encounters of the diasporic subjects as they apply strategies of ethnic negotiation and translation in confronting what it means to be women with Chinese backgrounds in Australia.

Item Type:	Conference Paper
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/13555

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