Call for Papers

Bridging the Gap Between Migration and Museum Studies in Chinese Diasporas and Beyond

Dates: Thursday 9 and Friday 10 January 2025.

Venue: Online with the possibility of having one small in-person section at the University of Westminster, London.

Fee: the symposium is free. Participants attending the in-person session shall cover the travel and accommodation themselves.

Language: English and Chinese

This symposium is jointly organised by the Hub on Migration, Exile, Languages and Spaces (HOMELandS) Research Centre of the University of Westminster and the Chinese Heritage Centre of the Nanyang Technological University, supported by Centre for Chinese Language and Culture, Nanyang Technological University. It is the concluding event of the ‘Global Diasporic Chinese Museums Network Initiative’ project that has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Chinese Heritage Centre of the Nanyang Technological University.

The museum has become a vital platform for preserving diasporic heritage, articulating identities and negotiating the relationship between diasporas and the homeland. There has been an upsurge in the building of museums on Chinese diasporas in China and around the world over the past decades. From the late 1980s, museums related to Chinese diasporas have started to emerge in mainland China as new members of China’s museum scene. In parallel, museums of different sizes on the history of Chinese migration and settlement have been established by Chinese communities around the world. What we see here is an emerging global ‘museum-scape’ on the representations of Chinese diasporas.

The investigation of diasporic Chinese museums is a multi-disciplinary endeavour. It asks us to transcend borders, defined not only in national and geographical terms but also in terms of the boundaries between different disciplines and between academics and museum professionals. Conventionally, museum scholars do not usually engage with the issue of mobility and diaspora. Only recently have we seen the publications of research on migration museums, mostly in the European context. Likewise, migration scholars tend to focus on the movement of people alone

overlooking the movement of things and the material environment in which migration takes place and the material consequences of the movement. This symposium is aimed at filling this gap by bringing together academics, museum curators and cultural policymakers to discuss museum representations of Chinese diasporas by focusing on the intersection and interaction of the movement of people and the movement of things in a global context through the prisms of (1) the collection, classification and evaluation of museum objects, (2) curating and exhibition, (3) audience and public engagement, (4) cultural policies about diasporic museums and heritage.

Themes for the symposium include, but are not limited to:

● Historical perspectives on diasporic Chinese museums

● Museums and migrant communities

● Museums, nationalism and transnationalism

● Museum representations of diasporic identities

● Museums and the imagination of home (land)

● Museums and the development of qiaoxiang

● Museums and diasporic place-making

● Museums and diasporic memories

● Museums, social repair and reconciliation

● Museums, adaptation and integration

● Museums, multiculturalism and superdiversity

● Museums, tourism and urban regeneration

● Museums, de-colonisation and post-colonial identities

● Museums, care and well-being

● Museums, gender and sexuality

● Museums, generation and cultural transmission

● Virtual museums, digital technology and AI

● Theories and methods in the research into migration and museums

Please send an abstract of 250 words and a bio (max. 100 words, detailing affiliation, career stage and disciplinary background) to Dr. Huimei Zhang (hm.zhang@ntu.edu.sg) by 30 October 2024. The abstract and bio can be either in English or Chinese. For queries, please get in touch with Professor Cangbai Wang (c.wang6@westminster.ac.uk)

We aim to collect papers from the symposium to publish a journal special issue or an edited volume in 2025/2026.

征稿启事

移民与博物馆研究的界限：以离散华人为核心及其延展

日期: 2025年1月9日（周四）至10日（周五）

地点: 线上会议，部分线下发言将于英国伦敦威斯敏斯特大学举行。

费用: 线上会议参与者免费。线下会议参与者需自行承担差旅和住宿费用。

语言: 英文、中文

本次研讨会由英国威斯敏斯特大学移民、离散、语言和空间研究中心（HOMELandS）与新加坡南洋理工大学华裔馆联合主办，新加坡南洋理工大学中华语言文化中心协办。这是“全球华侨华人博物馆协作项目”的结项活动，该项目得到英国艺术与人文研究委员会（AHRC）和南洋理工大学华裔馆的资助。

博物馆已经成为保存离散遗产、表达身份认同以及协调华侨华人与故土关系的重要平台。过去几十年里，有关华侨华人的博物馆在中国及全球各地蓬勃发展。从20世纪80年代末起，与华侨华人相关的博物馆开始在中国大陆兴起，成为中国博物馆体系中的新成员。与此同时，世界各地的华人社区也陆续建立了不同规模的博物馆，展示华人移民的历史与定居经历。由此，一个全球性的“博物馆景观”逐渐成型，呈现出对华侨华人的多元展现。

华侨华人博物馆的研究是一项跨学科的工作，要求我们不仅跨越国家与地理的界限，还要跨越学科的边界，并加强学术界与博物馆专业人士之间的合作。传统上，博物馆研究者较少关注流动性与移民议题，直到近年才在欧洲学术语境中出现了一些关于移民博物馆的研究成果。同样，移民研究者通常专注于人口的迁移，忽视了物品的

动、迁移中的物质环境及其物质后果。本次研讨会旨在弥合这一差距，汇集学者、博物馆策展人和文化政策制定者，围绕全球背景下“人口与物品流动”的交汇与互动展开讨论，聚焦以下几个方面：

(1) 博物馆藏品的收集、分类与评估；

(2) 策展与展览；

(3) 观众与公众参与；

(4) 有关离散博物馆与遗产的文化政策。

研讨会主题（包括但不限于）：

• 华侨华人博物馆的历史视角
• 博物馆与移民社区
• 博物馆、民族主义与跨国主义
• 博物馆中的离散身份呈现
• 博物馆与家园（祖国）的想象
• 博物馆与侨乡的发展
• 博物馆与侨居地的构建
• 博物馆与离散记忆
• 博物馆、社会修复与和解
• 博物馆、适应与融合
• 博物馆、多元文化主义与超级多样性
• 博物馆、旅游与城市再生
• 博物馆、去殖民化与后殖民身份
• 博物馆、关怀与福祉
• 博物馆、性别与性别认同
• 博物馆、代际传承与文化传递
• 虚拟博物馆、数字技术与人工智能
• 移民与博物馆研究中的理论与方法

请于2024年10月30日前将250字的摘要及100字以内的个人简介（包括所属机构、职衔及学科背景）发送至张慧梅博士（hm.zhang@ntu.edu.sg）。摘要及个人简介可用英文或中文撰写。如有任何疑问，请联系王苍柏教授（c.wang6@westminster.ac.uk）。

我们计划在2025至2026年将研讨会的优秀论文出版为期刊专辑或论文集。