Author Description

Recent studies of Chinese voluntary associations (CVAs) have attempted to highlight the theoretical significance of CVAs for understandings of community (re)making. However, the power dynamics inherent in community (re)making have rarely been expounded. In recognition of this, this book weaves together case studies across countries in the Asia Pacific to explore the complex power relations played out in and through the transformation of CVAs. Collectively, CVAs are understood as ever-changing, heterogeneous ancestral communities composed of common ancestral ties, be it origin, locality, surname, religion or language. Contributions to this book focus on CVAs in three ways: (1) by foregrounding CVAs as sites of power relations through unpacking ethnic relations and gender hierarchies; (2) by illuminating Chinese diaspora transnationalism beyond political-economic perspectives; and (3) by examining the contemporaneous transformation of ethnic Chinese communities in shifting times, including amidst China's ‘rise’ as a global power. This book was originally published as a special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies.