Asian Diasporas as Methodologies in Transnational Ethnoscapes

• In Event: Asian Diasporas as Methodologies

Abstract

The trajectories of Asian diaspora inquiry I have been engaged in are evolving with my diaspora experience in a wide array of areas such as: cross-cultural narrative inquiry; creating a composite auto/biographical narrative method to study diasporic experience; representing bilingual and bicultural diaspora lives and identities; using metaphors to identify research themes and to understand and express diaspora experiences; tales in words and tales on canvas-telling stories through arts and poetry; using life based literary narratives in diaspora teacher education; research on the education of Asian diaspora students in schools, families, and communities; research on the education of Asian diasporas in Hong Kong and Mainland China; exile pedagogy, exile curriculum, and teaching in-between; diaspora curriculum theorizing including conceptions of diasporas, the breadth, diversity, and complexity of diasporas, diaspora consciousness, diasporic space, and the in-betweenness of diasporas, exile and diaspora epistemology, exile pedagogy, exile curriculum, decolonizing diasporas, and Asian diasporic imaginaries and futurities.

The cartographies of Asian diaspora methodologies can be traced to such works on decolonization as Asia as method (Chen, 2010), AsianCrit (Chang, 1993; Iftikar & Museu, 2018; Museus & Iftikar, 2013; also An, 2016, 2017a, 2017b; Kim & Hsieh, 2022; Liu, 2009; Park & Liu, 2014; Poon & Segoshi, 2018; Rodríguez, 2018, 2019; Rodríguez & Kim, 2018, 2019), decolonization and globalization (Lin & Martin, 2005), decolonizing methodologies and Indigenous and decolonizing studies in education (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999/2012; Tuhiwai Smith, Tuck, & Yang, 2019; also Chilisa, 2012; Kovach, 2009/2012; Oliveira & Wright, 2016), decolonizing educational research (Patel, 2016), decolonizing research/indigenous storywork as methodology (Archibald, 2000; Archibald, Xiiem, Lee-Morgan, & Santolo, 2019), testimonios, theory in the flesh, and third world women’s writing as self-preservation and revolution (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 1981/1983), creative/critical perspectives by women of color (Anzaldúa, 1987, 1990), critical race/LatCrit methodology and counter-storytelling (Delgado, 1989; Solórzano & Yosso, 2001, 2002, 2009; Yosso, 2006), and methodology of the oppressed (Sandoval, 2000).

I have been engaged in a study in Savannah, Georgia to explore how Chinese diaspora families and communities work with schools to facilitate their children’s academic success while maintaining their cultural and language heritages. It builds on my diaspora experience in China, Hong Kong/China, Canada and the U. S. A., and my ongoing Asian diaspora research. This research links with significant documentary study (e.g., Victor G. & Bary Nee, 1972), oral history research (Jianli Zhao, 2002), memoir (Wayson Choy, 1999), ethnographic and narrative work done with diaspora families and children (e.g., Guofang Li, 2002, 2006, 2008; James Loewen, 1971/1988). This research illuminates the ethnic/cultural diversity within Asian diasporas in mainstream scholarship and silenced stories of diaspora families and children neglected in educational policy making in terms of funding programs, services, and educational resources despite their growing presence in schools and societies. As Asian diasporas do not fit in the mainstream dominant discourse nor do they fit in marginalized minority discourse, I inquire into the thriving in-between space of Asian diasporas by exploring dilemmas, tensions, contradictions, and advantages associated with their diasporic experience.
 

Author

• Ming Fang He, Georgia Southern University
  Presenting Author