晚清民初南洋华人社群的文化建构 : 一种文化空间的发现 = The Cultural Construction of Nanyang Chinese Community in Late Qing and Early Republican China: Discovery of A Cultural Space

Abstract

This thesis investigates the formation of the cultural identity of Nanyang or Southeast Asian Chinese through analyzing cultural space of and in Nanyang. The existing scholarship treats early period of the post- World War II (1950s--1960s) as the formative period of Southeast Asian Chinese identity. This thesis, however, establishes the late 19th century as the formative era for the cultural identities of the ethnic community, and argues that the Chinese travelers (literati, merchants, military officers, political activists, monks, etc) not only perceived and observed but participated in the formation of the cultural identities of the ethnic community. Based on text analysis and extensive fieldwork in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, this thesis may provide an approach applicable to the studies of the interaction between China and Chinese diasporas at global level.