New World Orderings: China and the Global South

by Lisa Rofel (Editor), Carlos Rojas (Editor)

Overview

The contributors to New World Orderings demonstrate that China’s twenty-first-century rise occurs not only through economics and state politics but equally through the mutual entanglements of overlapping social, economic, and cultural worlds in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They show how the Chinese state has sought to reconfigure the nation’s position in the world and the centrality of trade, labor, religion, migration, gender, race, and literature to this reconfiguration. Among other topics, the contributors examine China’s post-Bandung cultural diplomacy with African nations, how West African “pastor-entrepreneurs” in China interpreted and preached the prosperity doctrine, the diversity of Chinese-Argentine social relations in the soy supply chain, and the ties between China and India within the complex history of inter-Asian exchange and Chinese migration to Southeast Asia. By examining China’s long historical relationship with the Global South, this volume presents a non-state-centric history of China that foregrounds the importance of transnational communicative and imaginative worldmaking processes and interactions.

Contributors. Andrea Bachner, Luciano Damián Bolinaga, Nellie Chu, Rachel Cypher, Mingwei Huang, T. Tu Huynh, Yu-lin Lee, Ng Kim Chew, Lisa Rofel, Carlos Rojas, Shuang Shen, Derek Sheridan, Nicolai Volland

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478016373
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	12/16/2022
Series:	Sinotheory
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Lisa Rofel is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture, also published by Duke UniversityPress.

Carlos Rojas is Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke Universityand author of Homesickness: Culture, Contagion, and National Transformation in Modern China.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  vii
Introduction: Contact, Communication, Imagination, and Strategies of Worldmaking / Carlos Rojas and Lisa Rofel  1
Part I. Geopolitics and Discourse
1. Turning the Tables on the Global North: China, Afro-Asia, and Cold War Cultural Diplomacy / Nicolai Volland  21
2. From the Washington Consensus to the Beijing Consensus: Latin America Facing the Rise of China as a Great Power / Luciano Damián Bolinaga  38
3. Prehistories of China-Tanzania: Intermediaries, Subempires, and the Use of Abuse of Comparison / Derek Sheridan  58
4. A World Republic of Southern Letters / Ng Kim Chew  75
Part II. Labor and Exchange
5. New Livelihood Strategies and Ways of Being for African Women and Men in China's Workshop of the World / T. Tu Huynh  95
6. Prophetic Becoming: The Prosperity Doctrine in Guangzhou, China / Nellie Chu  113
7. Soy Makes Us Friends . . . or Not: Negotiating the “Chinese Landing“ in Argentina’s Contact Zone / Rachel Cypher and Lisa Rofel  131
8. Displacing Labor: China, Argentina, and the Work of Globalization / Andrea Bachner  149
Part III. Mobility and Displacement
9. Global South Frontiers: Chinese Worldmaking and Racial Imaginaries of Johannesburg / Mingwei Huang  169
10. A Cultural Cartography of the Sinophone Diaspora in Southeast Asia: The Cinema of Midi Z / Yu-Lin Lee  187
11. Writing South: Narratives of Homeland and Diaspora in Southeast Asia / Carlos Rojas  204
12. The Chinese Literary Imaginary and the Global South in Deep Time / Shuang Shen  222
Works Cited  241
Contributors  261
Index  265

What People are Saying About This

China in the World: Culture, Politics, and World Vision - Ban Wang

“This important collection is cutting-edge work on China’s impact and interaction with the global South. By engaging with the gamut of cultural, diplomatic, and economic interactions and practices in China’s relationships with countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the contributors illuminate regional inequalities, gendered labor migration, trading ties, racial tensions, and neoliberal ideologies. It is a useful resource for all students and scholars in Chinese studies.”

What Is a World-yet: On Postcolonial Literature as World Literature - Pheng Cheah

“This important volume focuses on the centrality of soft power and the cultural dynamics of China’s connections to the global South and how this influences the signifying and development of Chinese-ness. It is a timely corrective supplement to dominant social science discussions on how China’s emergence as a global power has drastically altered the world system.”

Pheng Cheah, author of - What Is a World?: On Postcolonial Literature as World Literature

“This important volume focuses on the centrality of soft power and the cultural dynamics of China’s connections to the global South and how this influences the signifying and development of Chinese-ness. It is a timely corrective supplement to dominant social science discussions on how China’s emergence as a global power has drastically altered the world-system.”

Editorial Reviews

"New World Orderings is a timely contribution to the growing body of literature on the relationship between the Sinosphere and the Global South. By giving readers a glimpse into these multifaceted and evolving relationships from the ground up, readers see that these interactions are complex, nuanced, and often tell alternative stories about how communities are made, how commodities and capital travel, and how 'Chineseness' is a fundamentally ephemeral concept."—Kelly A. Hammond, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture

"The 13 contributors, representing the arts, social sciences, and interdisciplinary studies, establish interesting connections among social, cultural, and economic worlds. . . . Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals."—G. A. McBeath, Choice

From the Publisher

"The 13 contributors, representing the arts, social sciences, and interdisciplinary studies, establish interesting connections among social, cultural, and economic worlds. . . . Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals."

Choice - G. A. McBeath

"New World Orderings is a timely contribution to the growing body of literature on the relationship between the Sinosphere and the Global South. By giving readers a glimpse into these multifaceted and evolving relationships from the ground up, readers see that these interactions are complex, nuanced, and often tell alternative stories about how communities are made, how commodities and capital travel, and how 'Chineseness' is a fundamentally ephemeral concept."

Modern Chinese Literature and Culture - Kelly A. Hammond