Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong

In this talk Dr. Xiaoxuan Wang will present preliminary ideas and findings from his ongoing project. This project explores the formation of European Chinese communities, focusing on people of southern Zhejiang origin, who make up the lion’s share of Chinese in continental Europe today. The project asks: If the construction of southern Zhejiang European communities underline efforts to construct a transnational life beyond the nation-state, what role did the Chinese state, especially the Republican and PRC governments, play in the transnationalism of southern Zhejiang people? The experience of European Chinese, especially its history, has been far less explored and understood than that of Chinese in Southeast Asia or America. The project hopes to provide a unique perspective on the intricate relations between transnationalism, localism and the state that have made and continue to make the Chinese overseas in the modern day.