Un/making homeland: Sinophone literature and Cold War culture in Malaya

This project aims to advance understanding of Cold War culture and decolonisation through Chinese diaspora experience and literature. By unearthing a corpus of underexplored archives, using literary analysis and ethnography, this interdisciplinary project offers the first comprehensive study of Sinophone literature and print culture in Cold War Malaya. Expected outcomes include new knowledge of how Chinese diaspora writers claim subjecthood amidst anti-communist violence in Southeast Asia, which shed light on the complex interplay of geopolitics, literature and identity. This project benefits Australian understanding of Chinese diaspora responses to global superpower rivalry during the old Cold War amidst a similar phenomenon today.