This Palgrave Pivot examines why racialism is so persistent and the challenges it poses to the functioning of democracy and the attainment of national integration. It introduces an evolutionary psychology framework, which explains human innate potential to identify with and defend one’s group, but argues that racial dislike and conflicts are provoked by racial ideologies and the politics of ethnicity. By comparing the politics of race in a number of countries, including Malaysia and the Un...

This is a timely book that fills the gap in the study of Chinese overseas and their religions in the global context. Rich in ethnographic materials, this is the first comprehensive book that shows the transnational religious networks among the Chinese of different nationalities and between the Chinese overseas and the regions in China. The book highlights diverse religious traditions including Chinese popular religion, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, and discusses inter-cultural influenc...

Since the 1978 opening up of China and her active engagement in economic reformation and modernization, China has become a truly global economic power. These developments have, consequently, had an impact on ethnic Chinese people living across the world.Traditionally, the study of immigrant communities has focused on internal factors, such as the leadership and social organization of the actors inside the communities. This book, however, turns attention to the exogenous factors, wh...

The Chinese overseas have long been relevant to China, especially to qiaoxiang, and vice-versa. Qiaoxiang refers to regions from where emigrants migrated overseas, where there are therefore ties with Chinese communities overseas. Unlike most other works, which cover either China or the Chinese overseas, this book examines both China and the Chinese overseas in relation to qioaxiang.With clearly presented chapters that examine the ancestral homeland, Chine...

With around 40 million people worldwide, the ethnic Chinese and the Chinese in diaspora form the largest diaspora in the world. The economic reform of China which began in the late 1970s marked a huge phase of migration from China, and the new migrants, many of whom were well educated, have had a major impact on the local societies and on China.This is the first interdisciplinary Handbook to examine the Chinese diaspora, and provides a comprehensive analysis of the processes and ef...

Food is an important cultural marker of identity in contemporary Asian societies, and can provide a medium for the understanding of social relations, family and kinship, class and consumption, gender ideology, and cultural symbolism. However, a truly comprehensive view of food cannot neglect the politics of food production, in particular, how, when, from where and even why different kinds of food are produced, prepared and supplied.Food and Foodways in Asia is an anthropological in...