Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
The Middlestage: State-Sponsored Overseas Chinese Academics and China's Managed Cultural Globalisation
This in-depth ethnographic study focuses on state-sponsored Overseas Chinese Academics (OCAs) and China's managed cultural globalisation based on two years of multi-sited fieldwork in South Africa, Australia, and China. Extending Goffman's (1956) theoretical frameworks of everyday dramatism such as...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
School of African and GenderStuds, Anth and Ling
2022
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | This in-depth ethnographic study focuses on state-sponsored Overseas Chinese Academics (OCAs) and China's managed cultural globalisation based on two years of multi-sited fieldwork in South Africa, Australia, and China. Extending Goffman's (1956) theoretical frameworks of everyday dramatism such as the frontstage and the backstage, I adopt the middlestage as the primary conceptual lens of my investigation. The middlestage of China's managed cultural globalisation is examined as a fluid and embodied space where state-sponsored OCAs and Chinese state institutions negotiate power in the process of producing performances. I argue that for state-sponsored OCAs, the middlestage of China's managed cultural globalisation is simultaneously a space of curation, negotiation, and re-imagination. The research also incorporates an ethnographic fiction titled The Islanders and provides a thick description of my state-sponsored OCA participants' life trajectories. The Islanders reveals how individual OCAs curate their performances and self-presentations, negotiate their social mobility and identities; and reimagine their realities whilst seeking conviviality on the middlestage. The thesis discusses and demonstrates how ethnographic fiction can be used as an essential tool for anthropological research. |
|---|