Becoming Chinese in the Malay world: colonialism, migration and history in Singapore

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article raises a neglected discussion on the intertwined connections between Chinese migration and European imperial formations in the Malay world using Singapore as a focal point. Working from the perspective of critical historiography in contemporary Singapore, the article highlights limitations in current approaches using concepts such as “Chinese migration” and “Chinese diaspora.” I suggest using “the Malay world” to surface the specificity of the coloniality of migratory Chineseness in this region on account of the transethnic and fluid character of the Malay world. Using the Malay world as method and conceptual scaffolding helps to contextualise Chinese migration to Singapore within Indigenous patterns of movement, settlement and identity formation in a region disrupted and reorganised with European imperial formations during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Unravelling nationalistic framing of masculine and patriarchal histories of diasporic Chineseness, this approach critiques efforts in myth-making about Chineseness and Singaporean exceptionalism in this region.