Full Description
This is an ethno-historical study of Chinese from West Kalimantan, Indonesia that, unlike other Chinese Diasporic studies, takes its departure from the "away" position. The study aims to interrogate how, where, and in what terms "home" is defined for the stranger. Through examining historical events such as the Japanese Occupation, the repatriation of overseas Chinese to China, and ethnic and state violence in West Kalimantan, this study highlights the plight of the Chinese as political orphans in search of a home that eludes them, whether in Indonesia or China. Through a rich array of different kinds of data, including oral histories and memoirs of the Communist underground, this book offers novel perspectives on the role of history in subject formation.
Contents
Preface
Section 1: Introduction
Chapter 1: The Chinese Diasporic Subject as Stranger
Section 2: Looking for Home in a Foreign Land
Chapter 2: The Japanese Occupation and the Chinese Anti-Japanese Movement
Chapter 3: Post-War, Pre-New Order
Section 3: The New (Dis)Order: Making Strangers at Home
Chapter 4: Recovering a Place in History: Narratives of Violence
Chapter 5: The Vicissitudes of the Communist Underground
Section 4: Negotiating Estrangement: Between Cosmology and the Social
Chapter 6: The Phenomenology of Spirits, or the Presencing of the Other
Section 5: West Kalimantan as Home
Chapter 7: On the Politics and Poetics of Home
Epilogue: The Uncertainty of Strangers
