NEW ETHNICITIES AND THE INTERNET

Abstract

Stuart Hall's observation that ‘… identity is formed at that point where the unspeakable stories of subjectivity meet the narratives of history, of a culture …’ (Hall 1987, ‘Minimal Selves’, in Identity: The Real Me, ICA, London, p. 44) has inspired much of our previous exploration of the lives of second generation Chinese young people in Britain. In this work we have drawn attention to the relative absence of British Chinese voices in public culture. Since 1999 the emergence of Internet discussion sites produced by British Chinese young people has provided forums for many of their previously “unspeakable stories” to circulate. In this paper we re-examine Stuart Hall's influential discussions of identity in the light of the Internet's role in transmitting the discourses he regards as formative, rather than expressive, of identities. The everyday interchanges of the Internet provide more spontaneous representations than the artistic practices prompting Hall's discussion of ‘new ethnicities’ 20 years ago. Accordingly, the online discussion forums we discuss in this paper address a number of issues often overlooked in appropriations of the new ethnicities terminology. In addition to ongoing debates about the ‘place’ and experiences of British Chinese people, we examine the growing off-line mobilizations engendered by online engagements.

Keywords:

• British Chinese
• Stuart Hall
• Internet
• identities
• mobilization
• racialization

Notes

1 This article draws on research funded by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council for the project ‘British Chinese Online Identities’, (RES-000-22-1642). We acknowledge their support.

2 From 1999 until July 2007 the site was accessible via www.britishbornchinese.org.uk and was known as the ‘British Born Chinese’ site. The reason for the change to ‘British Chinese Online’ was partly due to technical issues concerning the original domain name, but also resulted from a recognition that many young Chinese people in Britain had been born elsewhere, yet regarded themselves as British Chinese.