ABSTRACT
Pioneered by Shu-mei Shih, the "Sinophone" is an amended analytic category and a long-overdue alternative to the discourses of "Chinese" and "Chinese diaspora" that have traditionally defined Chinese studies. In her path-breaking book Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations across the Pacific, Shih defines the Sinophone world as "a network of places of cultural production outside of China and on the margins of China and Chineseness, where a historical process of heterogenizing and localizing of continental Chinese culture has been taking place for several centuries." Shih's conceptualization of the Sinophone, though, is a decisive riposte against the diaspora framework: To say that diaspora has an end date is to recognize that one cannot still be called diasporic after long periods of localization and heterogenization in regional communities. The Sinophone framework has taken the field by storm because it provides a rich theoretical rubric for examining the diverse origins and audiences for cultural production related to Chinese-speaking peoples and communities worldwide.
