Forged Transnationality and Oppositional Cosmopolitanism
Author(s):
Schein, Louisa
Format:
Journal article
Citation:
Comparative Urban And Community Research, Volume 6, (1998). pp. 291-313.
Language:
English
Abstract:
Examines identity exchanges between Hmong & Miao individuals across the Pacific, drawing on 1993 & 1996/97 ethnographic research in the People's Republic of China & focusing on an extension of Bruce Robbins's (1993) concept of cosmopolitanisms. Approximately 200 years ago, several hundred thousand Miao migrated to Vietnam, Laos, & Thailand. More recently, many of these individuals, termed the Hmong, have migrated to the US. Currently, the Hmong are engaged in a process of recovering lost connections to the Miao of the Chinese homeland. This process has been conducted in a paradoxical process of representing the Miao as a pure, pastoral people who stand in contrast to the corrupted, Westernized Hmong. Much of this exchange has taken place via video images. It is suggested that this process constitutes an identity-exchange in which the Hmong have produced a romanticized Miao, & the Miao have deployed various strategies of self-representation to construct a transnational identification. Thus, in the solidarity sought by the Hmong & the Miao exists a good deal of inequality & difference. 32 References. D. Ryfe