Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and Displacement - Purdue e-Pubs

214 Pages·2013·13.45 MB·English

Contents

Introduction to Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and
Displacement 2
I-Chun Wang and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek

Part One: Identity and Migration

Distance, Culture, and Migration in Ancient China 5
Chin-Chuan Cheng
Sui and Tang Princess Brides and Life after Marriage
at the Borderlands 11
Jennifer W. Jay
The Hybridities of Philip and Özdamar 25
Sabine Milz
The Ambivalent Americanness of J. Hector St. Jean de
Crèvecoeur 48
Susan Castillo
Ethnicity and Nationhood in Achebe's Arrow of God 58
Pao-I Hwang
The Migration of Gender and the Labor Market 74
Anders W. Johansson and Maria Udén
Migration, Diaspora, and Ethnic Minority Writing 86
Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek

Part Two: Identity and Displacement

Cosmopolitanism in Zhu's Ancient Capital (Gudu) 99
Yu-chuan Shao
British Muslims and Limits of Multiculturalism in Kureishi's
The Black Album 111
Shao-Ming Kung
(Im)migration and Cultural Diasporization in Garcia's Monkey
Hunting 127
Jade Tsui-yu Lee
Documentary Photography on the Internment of
Japanese Americans 139
Hsiu-chuan Lee
Interculturalism and New Russians in Berlin 163
Giacomo Bottà
From Diaspora to Nomadic Identity in the Work of Lispector
and Felinto 182
Paola Jordão

Part Three: Thematic Bibliography

Selected Bibliography of Work on Identity, Migration, and
Displacement 198
Li-wei Cheng, Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, and I-Chun Wang

Index 208
Introduction to Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and
Displacement
I-Chun Wang and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek

Culture and cultural expressions including literature and art contain
many examples of life experiences related to migration and diaspora
and in these texts we find elaborate descriptions — explicit and
implicit — of matters and perspectives about and related to identity
in all its formations and problematics. Migration and diaspora result
in the problematics of assimilation and hybridity and in postcolonial
scholarship, in particular, attention is paid to the concept of
migration termed "Creolization" on the ground that cultural contact,
cultural transmission, and cultural transformation result in the
creation of new cultures. For example, Salikoko S. Mufwene
suggests that Creolization is a social process and argues that in the
process of Creolization language learning parallels the problematics
of multiple identities because interactions and boundary crossings
weave the patterns of identity ("Creolization is a Social, not a
Structural Process," Degrees of Restructuring in Creole Languages.
Ed. Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000.
65-84). According to Douglas S. Massey, the four periods in the
history of international migration include the mercantile period that
lasted from 1500 to 1800 BC, the period of European industrial
migration after World War I, and the period of post-industrial
migration since the 1960s (Worlds in Motion: Understanding
International Migration at the End of the Millennium. Oxford: Oxford
UP, 1998. 1-2). And Milton Sernett postulates that migration is a
"theme of enduring historic significance" (Bound for the Promised
Land: African American Religion and the Great Migration. Durham:
Duke UP, 1997. 1).
Migration and diaspora are results of a multitude of social,
political, and economic circumstances which, in turn, result in social,
economic, and cultural marginalization. In Western history and
culture, the expansion of the Roman empire caused migration as
soldiers moved to conquered areas and movement of peoples such
as the Germanic and Slavic tribes and clashes of cultures, as well as
confrontations between ethnic tribes were common. In the Age of
Exploration the Atlantic slave trade resulted in the movement of
people within Africa and forced migration of large numbers of people.
And the nineteenth century culminated in ethnic diasporas and the
displacement of migrant workers throughout the Western world with
the twenty-first century continuing global migration of peoples
between continents resulting in much conflict cultural, social,
political, etc., and this can be seen in a variety of cultural
expressions.
The articles in the volume at hand are selected and
peer-reviewed studies from National Sun Yat-sen University's
Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences 2008 international
conference Perspectives on Migration, Nationhood, and Ethnicity, as
Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and Displacement 3
Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, I-Chun Wang, and Hsiao-Yu Sun

well as peer-reviewed articles following a general call for papers.
The volume is divided in Part One: Identity and Migration with the
articles "Distance, Culture, and Migration in Ancient China" by
Chin-Chuan Cheng, "Sui and Tang Princess Brides and Life after
Marriage at the Borderlands" by Jennifer W. Jay, "The Hybridities of
Philip and Özdamar" by Sabine Milz, "The Ambivalent Americanness
of J. Hector St. Jean de Crèvecoeur" by Susan Castillo, "Ethnicity and
Nationhood in Achebe's Arrow of God" by Pao-I Hwang, "The
Migration of Gender and the Labor Market" by Anders W. Johansson
and Maria Udén, and "Migration, Diaspora, and Ethnic Minority
Writing" by Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, in Part Two: Identity and
Displacement with the articles "Cosmopolitanism in Zhu's Ancient
Capital (Gudu)" by Yu-chuan Shao, "British Muslims and Limits of
Multiculturalism in Kureishi's The Black Album" by Shao-Ming Kung,
"(Im)migration and Cultural Diasporization in Garcia's Monkey
Hunting" by Jade Tsui-yu Lee, "Documentary Photography on the
Internment of Japanese Americans" by Hsiu-chuan Lee, "Intercul-
turalism and New Russians in Berlin" by Giacomo Bottà, and "From
Diaspora to Nomadic Identity in the Work of Lispector and Felinto"
by Paola Jordão, and in Part Three "Selected Bibliography of Work
on Identity, Migration, and Displacement" by Li-wei Cheng, Steven
Tötösy de Zepetnek, and I-Chun Wang.
Work published in the volume is intended for both scholars and
a general readership interested in comparative aspects of migration
in literary, historical, photographic, and filmic expressions of
migration, displacement, and identity.

Author's profile: I-Chun Wang teaches English literature at National Sun
Yat-sen University. Her interests in scholarship include comparative
literature, Chinese and Taiwan drama, and English Renaissance drama.
Among her recent publications are Gendered Memories (Studies in
Comparative Literature 28), Xing Bie yu Jiang Jieh (Gender and Boundary),
East Asian Cultural and Historical Perspectives, and Identity Politics: Early
Modern Culture. She is currently working on Renaissance travel literature.

Author's profile: Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek works in comparative cultural
studies and media and communication studies. For lists of his publications
see <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweblibrary/totosycv>. He is editor of the
Purdue UP humanities and social sciences quarterly CLCWeb: Comparative
Literature and Culture <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb>, the Purdue UP
series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies, and the Shaker Publisher
series of Books in Comparative Culture, Media, and Communication Studies.
Part One
Identity and Migration
Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and Displacement 5
Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, I-Chun Wang, and Hsiao-Yu Sun

Distance, Culture, and Migration in Ancient China
Chin-Chuan Cheng

Abstract: In his paper "Distance, Culture, and Migration in Ancient China"
Chin-Chuan Cheng explores the concept of distance, travel, and migration in
ancient China. During the times of the Spring and Autumn and the Warring
States (770-221 BC), most of the vassal states were in present-day Henan
province and nearby regions of the Central Plains within a radius of some
700 kilometers of Luoyang. It is in this region where for example poems and
songs were gathered and compiled in the Book of Odes and thus the culture
of the Central Plains was formed. Places beyond the Central Plains were
considered frontiers and were regarded as culturally primitive. In the
ensuing years of Chinese dynasties including the Tang, Song, and Yuan,
imperial courts often relegated high officials to towns and cities at least 700
kilometers away from the capital. However, this requirement with regard to
distance was never mentioned in any decree or judgment of law. Cheng
postulates that the said implicit rule of distance explains a number of factors
with regard to geographic considerations in many activities and events in
Chinese history and culture.

Formation of the Central Plains

The earliest record of the term "Middle Kingdom" occurred in the
inscription on the bronze utensil He Jun unearthed at Jiacun, Baoji,
Shaanxi in 1963 (see Wang). The utensil was made during the West
Zhou Chengwang rein (1042-1020 BC). The inscription says that the
king would rule from Chengzhou, the center of the country.
Chengzhou was the city Luo, present-day Luoyang, Henan. During
the Chengwang rein, the capital was Zongzhou also called Hao near
present-day Xi'an, Shaanxi. Geographically speaking, Luo indeed
was in the center of the states of China in the period. The maps I
used to establish the relationships of distance and locations of oral
transmission and exile I am discussing in my article was produced
with the ArcView GIS 3.3 (2002) software by ESRI: Environmental
Systems Research Institute, a geographic information system based
on historical data taken from Qixiang Tan's The Historical Atlas of
China and maps at the Academia Sinica. The geographic information
system allowed me to measure the distance between any points and
the result of my measurements was that the vassal states were all
located within a radius of 700 kilometers from the center Luo.
In my article "Distance of Oral Transmission and Geographic
Range of Human Interaction" I discuss a number of marriages
between nobles of Zhou, the Spring and Autumn, and the Warring
states on the basis of the inscriptions on bronze utensils. As gleaned
from the inscriptions, many girls of the noble families in the Han and
Hui river areas went north to marry nobles. The correlation of the
6 Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and Displacement
Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, I-Chun Wang, and Hsiao-Yu Sun

location of the girls' families and the location of the families the girls
married into shows that the longest distance of the two locations
rarely exceed 700 kilometers, thus supporting my hypothesis of a
built-in self-regulative pattern of migration which I postulate to be a
phenomenon of early Chinese society and culture. The Spring and
Autumn and the Warring states saw a flourishing of literature,
philosophy, and culture in general. Many lasting thoughts and
writings were formed during this period and the Book of Odes, for
example, contains a wealth of songs and poems from the various
states of the Central Plains and the book became one of the canons
for the next two thousand years in China. On the map I generated
as explained above, I drew a line between Chengzhou (Luo) and Qin
and 650 kilometers indicated the distance between these two
locations. Another line indicates 760 kilometers between Chengzhou
and Qi. These distances show again that migration was within a
radius of 700 kilometers from the center at Luo and thus I argue
that these states with the phenomenon of geographical distance
formation within which migration occurred resulted in social and
cultural development. Further, based on the implied self-regulation
of the distance of migration within the Central Plains, areas outside
of 700 kilometers away from Luo were considered culturally less
well developed frontiers. In consequence, I postulate that this
implicit self-regulation of migratory distance permeates Chinese
history and societal and cultural development. Following my
postulate, I examine the concept of distance in oral transmission
during the Han dynasty, the occurrences of exile as punishment and
instances of law during the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties in order
to test my postulate.

Distance of oral transmission

Written documents or printed books can be transported to distant
places. Orally transmitted stories, however, have to rely on human
interaction to traverse from one place to another. In ancient times
when there were no technical devices of transmission, human
contacts performed in orality were the major means of the
circulation of information and knowledge. The said circulation of
information and knowledge can be considered in terms of
geographical distances as a major factor in human interaction.
The Fengsu Tongyi by Ying Shao (ca. 153-196 AD) of the Han
dynasty recorded many stories heard from various places. Ying
Shao, a native of present-day Henan, was an official in Luoyang for
some time before he took up a position in Taishan, Shandong. We
Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and Displacement 7
Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, I-Chun Wang, and Hsiao-Yu Sun

can assume that he heard many of the stories when he was in
Luoyang and thus we can measure the distances of oral
transmission between Luoyang and the places where the stories
occurred. In the maps I generated I measured the straight-line
distance between Yunzhong and Luoyang and found that the length
was about 644 kilometers. This distance was one of the largest on
the map. I thus concluded that the upper limit of the range of
human interaction during that time was about 700 kilometers. Now
we turn to the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties to show that the
distance of 700 kilometers was an important consideration when
sending government officials into exile.

Exile in the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties

The Tang dynasty produced much great literature and scholarship
but many scholars and poets were exiled for one reason or another.
Here is a list of exiled scholars and poets with the distance of their
exile from their residence indicated: Han Yu (768-824) from
Jingzhao Fu (Xi'an) to Chaozhou (Guangdong): 1,400 Km; Liu
Zongyuan (773-819) from Jingzhao Fu (Xi'an) to Liuzhou (Guangxi):
1,090 Km; Liu Yuxi (772-842) from Jingzhao Fu (Xi'an) to Pozhou
(Zunyi, Guizhou): 750 Km; Yuan Zhen (779-831) from Jingzhao Fu
(Xi'an) toTongzhou (Daxian, Sichuan): 370 Km; Bai Juyi (772-846)
from Jingzhao Fu (Xi'an) to Jiangzhou (Jiujiang, Jiangxi): 850 Km; Li
Deyu (787-849)from Jingzhao Fu (Xi'an) to Yazhou (Haikou,
Hainan): 1,600 Km. Their locations of exile indicate the radius of
700 kilometers around the capital Jingzhao Fu (Chang'an); however
except Yuan Zhen the exiled scholars were sent into exile more than
700 kilometers away from the capital. This can be explained
because the Tang Dynasty greatly extended its borders. During the
rein of Tang Taizong (627-649) it was recorded in the Tang dynasty
history that the territory covered 9,511 li (4,755 km) from East to
West and 16,918 li (8,459 km) from North to South. Of note is that
the banished scholars were not sent to border regions but to places
in the culturally less developed areas within the country, that is,
outside of the Central Plains.

Exile, culture, and migration

The states of the Central Plains — the areas around and those south
of the Changjiang River — were rapidly developing in terms of
economy after the armed rebellion led by An Lushan and Shi Siming
in 755 and thus the southern prefectures had high percentage of