Shelly Chan: Diaspora’s Homeland. Modern China in the Age of Global MigrationHelen Hess

ASIEN – Nr. 152/153 (2019) pp. 156–58

Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. XIV + 264 pp., 26.95 USD

Chinese mass migration’s impact on countries around the globe has been studied extensively. Research on the same migration processes’ impact on China, on the other hand, is scarce. “Diaspora’s Homeland” tackles this gap by focusing on the relationship between Chinese migrants and their ancestral homeland. The author distinguishes between “diaspora time”, which, as a rather steady condition, describes the various ways in which migration affects people’s everyday lives; and “diaspora moments”, which describe the far-reaching consequences and resonances that occur when diaspora time overlaps with other temporalities (12–13). The book is built around five such “diaspora moments”…