British Subjects by Birth, Imperial Citizens by Choice: The Straits Chinese and Cultural Citizenship in Colonial Malaya.
In 1897, a diplomatic incident involving a Straits Chinese trader in Amoy who was arrested by Qing authorities, despite his claims of being a British subject rather than a Chinese national, set into motion a series of public and private debates about British subjecthood and the rights that it ought...
| Publicado en: | Itinerario Vol. 49; no. 2; pp. 1 - 22 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Cambridge University Press
Aug2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=190209714&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 190209714 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01651153 37VW jtl: Itinerario issn: 01651153 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Aug2025 vid: 49 iid: 2 pid: 15979 pub: Cambridge University Press artinfo: ui: 190209714 10.1017/S0165115325000087 ppf: 1 ppct: 21 formats: tig: atl: British Subjects by Birth, Imperial Citizens by Choice: The Straits Chinese and Cultural Citizenship in Colonial Malaya. aug: su: Citizenship Legal rights British colonies Colonies Malaya sug: subj: Malaya Citizenship Legal rights British colonies Colonies keyword: Britishness as cultural citizenship colonial society imperial citizenship Malayan history Straits Chinese ab: In 1897, a diplomatic incident involving a Straits Chinese trader in Amoy who was arrested by Qing authorities, despite his claims of being a British subject rather than a Chinese national, set into motion a series of public and private debates about British subjecthood and the rights that it ought to accrue to those that held said status. Drawing from contemporary accounts from the time, this paper investigates how Straits Chinese with the status of British subjects conceived of their subjecthood and understood their place in the British Empire and beyond. In particular, I make the case that Anglophile Straits Chinese understood British subjecthood as a form of what historian Daniel Gorman calls "imperial citizenship": legal and juridical rights in exchange for loyalty to the Crown. Drawing from the wider new imperial studies scholarship which has made a compelling case for how being British went beyond legal definitions of status and incorporated a cultural identification with the symbols, language, and style of the empire, I contend that this conception of subject as citizen derived from a sense of cultural citizenship developed through the inculcation of cultural "Britishness" within sections of the community. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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