Global Diasporic Chinese Museums Network Initiative

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The past two decades have witnessed an upsurge in the building of museums on Chinese diaspora both in the PRC and among the diasporic Chinese communities. Museum representations of Chinese diaspora in China are mostly dominated by a China-centred approach; by contrast, museums set up by Chinese overseas offer a diasporic perspective to Chinese heritage. Furthermore, diasporic Chinese communities in different places adopt different approaches to represent themselves. So far, there has been little interaction, let alone cooperation, between museums on Chinese diaspora set up in China and in diasporic Chinese communities; museums established by the diasporic Chinese have also developed largely in isolation. The aim of this research network project is to develop a global network of diasporic Chinese museums as a platform that initiates and stimulates intellectual dialogues and professional collaborations between museums in this field across geographic and national boundaries. It will bring together museum curators, scholars, policy makers, and other stakeholders in this emerging cultural sphere to exchange experiences and share insights into collecting, curating and exhibition practice and public engagement, and to generate impact on public policymaking and interdisciplinary research of migration and museum in the Chinese context and beyond. These objectives will be achieved through a set of activities, including: (1) An online public talk series on diasporic Chinese museums, consisting of 10 to 12 talks, each given by the curator/director of one participating museum and is open to the public. (2) Two on-site thematic workshops to have in-depth discussion of key issues emerging from the public talk series. The first one will be held in Singapore, with the participation of key museums in China, Southeast Asia and Australia. The second one will be held in London, with the participation of key museums and heritage institutes in the US, Canada and the UK. (3) A virtual international symposium to conclude the project. It will bring together academics, museum practitioners, policy makers and members of diasporic Chinese communities from around the world to discuss innovations in collaborative collecting, curating, exhibition and public engagement, and impacts on public policies and research. (4) An open-access website will communicate events and report on the output created on the basis of the above activities. The website will also function as an online home base for network museums and chronicle various activities, including bilingual blogs. The website will also host a joint online exhibition of key collections and outreach activities by member museums comparing the Chinese diasporic experience around the world. The findings of the project will be disseminated in a variety of forms and through different channels. Video recordings of public lecture series will be posted on the website of the project. A policy brief will be written at the end of the project. The PI and Co-will co-edit an edited volume of contributions made by museum curators/directors to the public talk series. Two thematic workshop reports will be produced and will include summaries of panels, commentary pieces, and multimedia features such as short audio and video interviews. The PI and Co-I will co-edit a special issue of a peer-reviewed academic journal (Journal of Chinese Overseas) to communicate the finding to academic audiences. Finally, we plan to set up an International Association of Diasporic Chinese Museums following the completion of the project to give the museum network a permanent institutional structure and cement the value and sustainability of this project. This project has wide-ranging and long-term impacts that will generate transformative effects on the development of Chinese diaspora museums, offer a fertile ground for developing interdisciplinary research of museum and heritage beyond nation-state framework and inform policy-making.