Eurasians: Celebrating Survival

Abstract

The search for my Asian ancestors and my discoveries in archives, the crumbling pages, the eroding ink, the disappearance of the word, are a metaphor for the simultaneous emergence of the will to recover memories and the slow fading away of the material traces of memory. Eurasians of Malaysia and Singapore once epitomised the blurring of boundaries between cultures and societies in colonial and immediate post-colonial periods. In exploring their cultural and social heritage in the archives and by networking with the Eurasian diaspora on the internet, individuals shape and reaffirm their identities on new and old frontiers. This paper presents Eurasians and their experiences as transcultural or in the middle ground – the space where new ways of being are developed and lived in a cross-cultural environment. It explores how the definition of Eurasian is changing in the context of contemporary globalised society.

Keywords:

• Eurasian
• Malaysia
• Identity
• Diaspora
• Memory
• Transcultural

Acknowledgments

I wish to acknowledge the support of my family in enabling me to undertake ongoing research on Eurasian genealogies and to the anonymous referees for their helpful comments on preliminary drafts of this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christine Choo

Christine Choo is an independent scholar and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, with a doctorate in History and degrees in Social Work and Australian Studies. She has worked as a social worker, social researcher and historian and has published on Western Australian history, race and gender issues