Under the simultaneous influences of globalization and localization, there has emerged a prevalent social formation based on a hybridized culture in which the cultural norms are many and various: boundary transcendence, alternative cultures, cultural hybridity, cultural creativity, connectivity, tolerance, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism. While the economic forces shaping globalization are powerful and seemingly getting stronger, they are not immutable, nor are their effects predictable or necessarily overwhelming. Contributors to this book are optimistic that the socio-cultural formations of the future, such as cultural hybridity and cosmopolitanism, will be a viable option for constructing new or renewed global communities of migrants around the world. It is on these diasporic communities that the self-definition (the self-identity) and cultural expansion of all migrants depend, and it is with these tools that migrants are best equipped to navigate the raging torrents of globalization in the new millennium of a post-postmodern era. Globalization brings with it a fear, a sense of loss and demise. It also brings with it a new sense of opportunity and hope. It is in this spirit that this book should be read.
Contributors: Chan Kwok-bun, Jan W. Walls, David Hayward, Michael E. DeGolyer, Lam Wai-man, Georgette Wang, Emilie Yeh Yueh-yu, Lu Fang, Nan M. Sussman, Rie Ito, Oscar Bulaong Jr., Brian Chan Hok-shing, Millie Creighton, Anthony Y.H. Fung, Ho Wai-chung, Chiou Syuan-Yuan, Chris Wood, Chung Ling, Steve Fore, Todd Joseph Miles Holden, Ashley Tellis, Jeffrey S. Wilkinson, Steven McClung
Chan Kwok-bun received his Ph.D. in sociology from York University, Canada, in 1978. He is married with two children. He is currently doing a study of returnees from the west now living and working in Hong Kong. Another study of his examines the adaptation of mainland Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong. He is former Head and Chair Professor of Sociology, and former Director of the David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies (LEWI), Hong Kong Baptist University. In 2005 Routledge published his two new books: Migration, Ethnic Relations and Chinese Business, and Chinese Identities, Ethnicity and Cosmopolitanism. Both books examine the identities and ethnicities of Chinese migrants and immigrants worldwide. In 2006, Brill published his Conflict and Innovation: Joint Ventures in China, which analyzes cultural hybridization in China's joint ventures.
Jan W. Walls is Professor Emeritus in Humanities at Simon Fraser University. Prior to retirement in 2006, he taught Chinese language, literature, culture and cross-cultural communication for 36 years. He was founding Director of SFU's Asia-Canada Program, and LEWI's North America-China Research Program.
David Hayward is Dean of the Faculty of Business and Enterprise at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. He is a David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies (LEWI) Fellow, and sits on the joint Board of LEWI and the Wing Lung Bank International Institute for Business Development.
