Reimagining Chinese Diasporas Studies in a Transnational World

[Recorded 28 April 2022]

With Shibao Guo, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary
Discussants: Lily Cho and Jean Michel Montsion, York University
Moderator: Qiang Zha, York University

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In this presentation, I examine the changing nature of the Chinese diasporas in a transnational world and its concomitant implications for Chinese diaspora studies internationally. With a shifting paradigm of transnationalism and transnational migration, new patterns of Chinese diasporas can be characterized by unprecedented hypermobility, hyperdiversity and hyperconnectivity. Such characterizations depict the global dispersal of overseas Chinese as one of the most hyperdiverse groups with substantial sub-group differences that distinguish it from most other diasporas. I then illustrate how the analytical constructs of hypermobility, hyperdiversity and hyperconnectivity aid in the reimagining of contemporary Chinese transnational diasporas and its implications for developing new scholarship on Chinese diasporas studies in a transnational world.

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Shibao Guo is Professor at the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary. Over the past twenty years as a transnational academic and scholar, Dr. Guo has developed research expertise in the areas of transnational migration, diaspora studies, Chinese immigrants in Canada, ethnic and race relations, and comparative and international education. His research has been funded by a number of organizations, including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada; International Organization for Migration; and Education International. Dr. Guo has numerous publications including books, journal articles and book chapters. His latest books include: Decolonising Lifelong Learning in the Context of Transnational Migration (Routledge, 2020), Immigration, Racial and Ethnic Studies in 150 years of Canada: Retrospects and Prospects (Brill|Sense, 2018). He is former president of Canadian Ethnic Studies Association (CESA) and the Comparative and International Education Society of Canada (CIESC). Currently he is co-editor of Canadian Ethnic Studies and two book series for Brill|Sense Publishers: Transnational Migration and Education and Spotlight on China.

Lily Cho is Associate Professor of English and Associate Dean, Global & Community Engagement in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University. Her recent book, Mass Capture: Chinese Head Tax and the Making of Non-Citizens is published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. It examines the relationship between race, citizenship and surveillance.

Jean Michel Montsion is Associate Professor in the Department of Multidisciplinary Studies at Glendon College, Director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University, and Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. His research focuses on the questions of mobility in gateway cities linking Canada to Asia. He currently works on documenting revitalization efforts for non-Mandarin Chinese languages in locations like Singapore and Vancouver, and he leads a national team investigating the racialization of Chinese, Indian and Korean international students to Canada.

Professor Guo’s talk launches the York Centre for Asian Research’s 20th anniversary celebrations and is organized by Faculty Associate Qiang Zha (Education).