ABSTRACT

Mixed racial and ethnic identities are topics of increasing interest around the world, yet studies of mixed race in Asia are rare, despite its particular salience for Asian societies.

Mixed Race in Asia seeks to reorient the field to focus on Asia, looking specifically at mixed race in China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and India. Through these varied case studies, this collection presents an insightful exploration of race, ethnicity, mixedness and belonging, both in the past and present. The thematic range of the chapters is broad, covering the complexity of lived mixed race experiences, the structural forces of particular colonial and post-colonial environments and political regimes, and historical influences on contemporary identities and cultural expressions of mixedness.

Adding significant richness and depth to existing theoretical frameworks, this enlightening volume develops markedly different understandings of, and recognizes nuances around, what it means to be mixed, practically, theoretically, linguistically and historically. It will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral and other researchers interested in fields such as Race and Ethnicity, Sociology and Asian Studies.

chapter |16 pages

Introduction

Mixed race in Asia

part I|48 pages

China and Vietnam

chapter 1|16 pages

‘A class by themselves’

Battles over Eurasian schooling in late-nineteenth-century Shanghai

chapter 2|17 pages

Mixing blood and race

Representing Hunxue in contemporary China

chapter 3|13 pages

Métis of Vietnam

An historical perspective on mixed-race children from the French colonial period

part II|50 pages

South Korea and Japan

chapter 4|15 pages

Developing bilingualism in a largely monolingual society

Southeast Asian marriage migrants and multicultural families in South Korea

chapter 5|16 pages

Haafu identity in Japan

Half, mixed or double?

chapter 6|17 pages

Claiming Japaneseness

Recognition, privilege and status in Japanese-Filipino ‘mixed’ ethnic identity constructions

part III|62 pages

Malaysia and Singapore

chapter 7|15 pages

Being ‘mixed’ in Malaysia

Negotiating ethnic identity in a racialized context

chapter 8|15 pages

Chinese, Indians and the grey space in between

Strategies of identity work among Chindians in a plural society

chapter 9|15 pages

‘Our Chinese’

The mixedness of Peranakan Chinese identities in Kelantan, Malaysia 1

chapter 10|15 pages

Eurasian as multiracial

Mixed race, gendered categories and identity in Singapore

part IV|68 pages

India and Indonesia

chapter 12|16 pages

Performing Britishness in a railway colony

Production of Anglo-Indians as a railway caste

chapter 13|13 pages

Sometimes white, sometimes Asian

Boundary-making among transnational mixed descent youth at an international school in Indonesia

chapter |6 pages

Afterword