Australians in Shanghai: Race, Rights and Nation in Treaty Port China
Tuesday, Jul 25, 2017 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Location:
Asia Bookroom
Unit 2, 1- 3 Lawry Place
Macquarie (adjacent to the Jamison Shopping Centre)
RSVP by Monday July 24th to 62515191 or books@asiabookroom.com
Entry by gold coin donation to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation
Invitation to the Launch on Tuesday July 25th of
Sophie Loy-Wilson's new book
Australians in Shanghai: Race, Rights and Nation in Treaty Port China
Join us when Professor Richard Rigby, Centre of China in the World, ANU launches Australians in Shanghai at 6pm on Tuesday July 25th at Asia Bookroom. Following the launch by Professor Rigby, Dr Loy-Wilson will give a short talk about these little known people and time in Australian-Chinese relations.
About the book: In the first half of the 20th century, a diverse community of Australians settled in Shanghai. There they forged a 'China trade', circulating goods, people and ideas across the South China Sea, from Shanghai and Hong Kong to Sydney and Melbourne. This trade has been largely forgotten in contemporary Australia, where future economic ties trump historical memory when it comes to popular perceptions of China. After the First World War, Australians turned to Chinese treaty ports, fleeing poverty and unemployment, while others sought to 'save' China through missionary work and socialist ideas. Chinese Australians, disillusioned by Australian racism under the White Australia Policy, arrived to participate in Chinese nation building and ended up forging business empires which survive to this day.
This book follows the life trajectories of these Australians, providing a means by which we can address one of he pervading tensions of race, empire and nation in the 20th century: the relationship between working-class aspirations for social mobility and the exclusionary and discriminatory practices of white settler societies.
About the author: Dr Sophie Loy-Wilson is an Australian historian who specialses in the social and cultural history of Australia's engagement with China. Much of her work has focused on Australians in treaty port Shanghai. Prior to taking up a position in the Department of History at the University of Sydney, she worked as a Postdoctoral fellow in the Laureate Research Program in International History, a Lecturer and Faculty Member at Deakin University and as a research fellow in the 'Contemporary Histories' program at the Alfred Deakin Institute. Sophie has also worked with Chinese Australian community groups to preserve the archives of the overseas Chinese diaspora in Australia. Her new research is on labour rights and Chinese 'coolie' migration to Australia and the Pacific.