Negotiating Global Chinatowns: Difference, Diversity and Connection

Over the past two centuries, diverse and changing Chinatowns have become global enclaves where separation from a surrounding city and society intersects with both the construction of “Chinese” communities and the processes that integrate Chinese into wider contexts while challenging or changing these contexts. Based on a decade of fieldwork in Chinatowns in the Americas, Europe, Australia, Asia and Africa, the investigators highlight the tensions of segregation and communit(ies) through the lenses of physical form and boundaries, social centers, and imagery. Drawing on Henri Lefebvres’s tripartite vision of the social construction of urban spaces (les espaces perçus, conçus and vécus), this article shows that Chinatowns, as distinctive spaces within a city, encapsulate intense debates about place, citizenship, rights and diversity that speak more generally to cities, nations and global urbanism

Cyberspace and gay rights in a digital China: queer documentary filmmaking under state censorship

Owing to China’s austere censorship regulations on film media, directors of films and documentaries engaging with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender themes have struggled to bring their work to domestic attention. Working outside of the state-funded Chinese film industry has become necessary for these directors to commit their narratives to film, but without approval of China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, these artists have had little chance of achieving widespread domestic distribution of their work. However, advancements in new media technology and Web 2.0, ranging from digital video formats to Internet-based distribution via social media networks and video-hosting platforms, provide opportunities for Chinese audiences to access films and documentaries dealing with LGBT themes. This empirical study assesses how production, promotion and consumption of queer documentary films are influenced by the development of social media within Chinese cyberspace. Through close readings of microblogs from Sina Weibo this study combines analysis of contemporary research with digital social rights activism to illustrate contemporary discourse regarding film-based LGBT representation in China. Finally, the study comments on the role that documentary filmmaking plays in China’s gay rights movement, and discusses the rewards (and challenges) associated with increased levels of visibility within society

Communities through the lens: Grassroots video in Philadelphia as alternative communicative practice

New technologies of video production and dissemination have signalled to some possibilities for democratizing media and communications among peoples worldwide. Through the systematic ethnographic and textual analysis of the Community Visions Program of Philadelphia\u27s Scribe Video Center, between 1990 and 1996, this dissertation provides a more complex vision of alternative media and their implications both for local communities and for our reading of contemporary mass media. It suggests that community and video are mutually influential, while the close relations of subject, producer, text and reader intrinsic to grassroots video recast relations of localism and globalism, the meanings of authenticity in form and content, and the construction of audience. The introduction situates this work within communication, with a model drawing on cultural studies and anthropology. This chapter discusses the author\u27s theoretical formation, participant observation and textual readings during fieldwork (1992 to 1996). The second chapter turns to Scribe itself, its history and goals and the selection process for Community Visions (CV) participants in order to provide an organizational and social context for the work within Philadelphia. The third chapter follows community into production. General patterns of grassroots production are balanced by detailed studies of two projects: Asian Americans United and the Anna Crusis feminist choir. The chapter stresses how production underscores both organizational strengths and weaknesses, redefining community in action. The fourth chapter extends this analysis to CV texts in form and content. After a close reading of three grassroots texts, it focuses on the CV transformation of documentary strategies like the interview and narration. Chapter V turns from text to audience. An overview of audience studies and how CV texts are interpreted and used is again complemented by two ethnographic case studies. These underscore how the video is embedded and reproduced within both a concrete community and one open to an imagined audience. The conclusions review the ways we understand relations of producer, text and audience in small-scale media and the implications of an holistic approach for questions of mass media

Chinese Outside Chinatown

(Statement of Responsibility) by Cindy Hing-yuk Wong(Thesis) Thesis (B.A.) -- New College of Florida, 1985(Electronic Access) RESTRICTED TO NCF STUDENTS, STAFF, FACULTY, AND ON-CAMPUS USE(Bibliography) Includes bibliographical references.(Source of Description) This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.(Local) Faculty Sponsor: Andrews, Anthon

The Flaneur Looks Up: Reading Chinatown Verticalities

While verticality seems intrinsic to the fabric of the modern city—a concrete second nature—understanding this dimension involves negotiations of people, functions, scale, and representations, especially as mobile people transform existing cityscapes. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in Chinatowns worldwide, where generations of Chinese, interacting with complex cities around them, have created places for varied immigrants and dispersed descendants in public and private spaces above and below the street. Verticality here is both intimate and performative, internal and external, “real” and imagined, as this walk through the Chinatown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) illustrates. Deciphering layers and dimensions of verticality, at the same time, expands our perceptions of both Chinatowns as places and the growth and structure of modern cities

Cine Europa: Behind the Scenes of a Collaborative Cultural Diplomacy Initiative in the Philippines

Cine Europa is a European Union Film Festival that has been staged annually in the Philippines since 1997. The EU attempts to augment Europe’s visibility through this effort, as European countries, through their corresponding embassies and cultural institutes, submit a film entry to exhibit to Philippine audiences. This paper characterises Cine Europa as a collaborative cultural diplomacy event, due to the participation of multiple states in one initiative. Findings form this case study indicate that although a collaborative cultural diplomacy project can bring together countries to work towards a common cultural goal, such as staging a festival, the policies, agendas, and interests of their home countries often take precedence in decision-making in areas like film selection. This is reflected in the way that the festival programme is created. Applying a production of culture approach, this paper argues that contributions by participating countries are influenced by three key considerations: the costs of acquiring films from their home countries, the states’ hosting of or participation in other film festivals in the Philippines, and the availability of films that align with the assigned theme of Cine Europa for the year