北アメリカの華僑・華人研究 : アジア系の歴史の創出とその模索(<特集>東南アジアを超えて : 華僑・華人史研究のフロンティア)

Abstract

The field of Overseas Chinese studies is inextricably linked with the historical and social context of thenation-state in which the field was established. In discussing the development of historical studies of theChinese in North America in the second half of the 20th century, this paper examines how OverseasChinese studies was established as a specific research field and reveals the field's characteristics whichare tied with the American context as a whole. From the early 1960s, Chinese immigrant intellectuals inthe Canadian and American West Coast authored histories of the overseas Chinese in Chinese. Thesestudies relied on the historical materials of Chinese immigrants and on Chinese secondary sources publishedunder the Overseas Chinese policy of the Taiwanese KMT. From the 1970s, as part of the Asian-American movement, second generation and immigrant middle-class Chinese intellectuals established thenew framework of Asian-American studies. This field proposed a scholarship which legitimated the historicalexperience and presence of the Asian in American society and was thus premised on Asians asAmerican citizens. The most recent scholarship on the overseas Chinese has introduced the concept oftransnationalism, which is premised on mobility, and several empirical historical studies have been producedin this field to overcome the nation-state paradigm.