"Mixed Race" Identities in Asia and the Pacific: Experiences from Singapore and New Zealand

Abstract

Zarine L. Rocha (2016) "Mixed Race " Identities in Asia and the Pacific: Experiences from Singapore and New Zealand. RoutledgeMixed race identities have become a subject of growing interest in many multicultural societies due to the growing number in this cohort. Cutting across the existing racial boundaries and established social structures, mixed race as a socially constructed category has distinguished itself from traditional discussions around race and ethnicities, imposing real and lasting effects and meanings for individuals' daily experience and the trajectories of societies. Set against such a background Mixed Race Identities in Asia and the Pacific unravels how individuals of mixed heritage negotiate and narrate their racial identities within a racially structured social framework while taking into consideration the effect of institutionalization and classification of race at the macro level. Analysis and discussions are generated from forty interviews: twenty in New Zealand and twenty in Singapore.Using the cases from Singapore and New Zealand is appropriate and relevant for this comparative study. The two countries share a similar British colonial past, but have gone through completely different trajectories: Singapore has developed a rigid fixed four-race framework, while New Zealand emphasizes a more fluid and voluntary ethnic identity. For people of mixed Chinese and European descent, living in New Zealand or Singapore can mean considerably different paths and experiences in terms of identity formation, reflecting power dynamics and sociohistorical implications within each society. Such comparable but different social and cultural settings offer interesting social laboratories to explore the formation of mixed race identities.One major theoretical contribution of the book is that Rocha attempts to combine an ecological perspective with narrative analysis. The ecological approach draws on an ecology of social factors of racial formation, looking at the tension between singular racial categories at the macro level, and complex and shifting identities at the micro (Omi, and Winant, 1986; Rochquemore et al., 2009). Rocha argues that narratives actively construct social reality and give meaning to the social world, rather than simply reflecting individual day-to-day experience, collective actions and state racial framework (page 9). Hence, "narratives of racial formation" is highlighted in this research to serve as the methodological approach to processing data and presenting findings, as well as a theoretical framework.The combination of micro and macro perspectives is not uncommon in race and identity studies. It provides further insights into the complexity of identity within a certain social structure, while highlighting the under-theorized connection between structure and agency. However, linking the micro level of identity and macro level of social structure can be analytically difficult. In both New Zealand and Singapore, gaps exist between personal identification and state/social narratives of race. For instance, in the both societies, the national censuses are crucially shaped by colonizer's racial and ethnic perceptions, reinforcing racial categorization, while personal stories of "mixed race" are not always coincide with or reflect the state narratives. In order to provide better insight into such disconnections, this book addresses the importance of bringing in a meso perspective. Rocha argues that "as social interaction occurs within and between communities, the in-between positioning of individuals of mixed descent highlights a complexity of influences" (page 11). …