Writing Modern Chinese History Inside Out: New Relational Approaches to (Un)thinking the Nation-State, Diaspora, and Transnationalism

Engaging with earlier scholarship that probes the linearity of the nation-state, recent works employ new relational approaches and foreground “Chinese” perceptions of “China.” They approach modern Chinese history through the lens of the emigrant-homeland dynamic, advocating a localized transnationalism and exploring the implications of the transnational turn on temporality. Also, situating the nation-state within history, they argue for a “shifting” China based on questions of ethnicity and cultural exchange.