Contesting British Chinese Culture

This is the first text to address British Chinese culture. It explores British Chinese cultural politics in terms of national and international debates on the Chinese diaspora, race, multiculture, identity and belonging, and transnational ‘Chineseness’. Collectively, the essays look at how notions of ‘British Chinese culture’ have been constructed and challenged in the visual arts, theatre and performance, and film, since the mid-1980s. They contest British Chinese invisibility, showing how practice is not only heterogeneous, but is forged through shifting historical and political contexts; continued racialization, the currency of Orientalist stereotypes and the possibility of their subversion; the policies of institutions and their funding strategies; and dynamic relationships with transnationalisms. The book brings a fresh perspective that makes both an empirical and theoretical contribution to the study of race and cultural production, whilst critically interrogating the very notion of British Chineseness.

1. Contesting British Chinese Culture: Mapping the Terrain, Ashley Thorpe and Diana Yeh.- 2. The Cultural Politics of In/Visibility: Contesting ‘British Chineseness’ in the Arts, Diana Yeh.- 3. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Dancing in the margins / on the border of oblivion, Erika Tan.- 4. ‘A history written by our bodies’: artistic activism and the agonistic Chinese ‘voice’ of Mad For Real’s performances at the end of the twentieth century, Katie Hill.- 5. Testing, Contesting, susan pui san lok.- 6. Manchester’s Chinese Arts Centre: a case study in strategic cultural intervention, Felicia Chan and Andy Willis.- 7. From South China to South London: A Journey in Search of Home through Fine Art Practice, Anthony Key.- 8. The Artist-Photographer and Performances of Identity: The Camera as Catalyst, Grace Lau.- 9. British Chinese Cinema and the Struggle for Recognition, Even on the Margins, Felicia Chan and Andy Willis.- 10. Cinema of Displaced Identity, Rosa Fong.- 11. The Arts Britain Utterly Ignores: or; Arts Council Funding and State Intervention in British East Asian Theatre in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ashley Thorpe.- 12. FACES Autobiographical Theatre and Cross-cultural Considerations, Veronica Needa.- 13. British Chinese Performance in Minor Transnational Perspective, Amanda Rogers.