A COLONIAL DIASPORA BETWEEN EMPIRES. THE MACANESE AND THE FICTION OF HENRIQUE DE SENNA FERNANDES帝國之間的殖民散居族裔。土生葡人和飛歷奇的小說
This article analyzes the construction and circulation of Macanese identity within a diasporic context, arguing that it was shaped less as a fixed "essence" than as a cultural performance situated between colonial empires. Drawing on the case of Macau’s Eurasian community—often self-identified as Po...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
July 2008
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40027/3651 |
| Summary: | This article analyzes the construction and circulation of Macanese identity within a diasporic context, arguing that it was shaped less as a fixed "essence" than as a cultural performance situated between colonial empires. Drawing on the case of Macau’s Eurasian community—often self-identified as Portuguese, yet marked by Cantonese linguistic and everyday influences as well as transregional commercial networks—the text frames the discussion within recent debates on the "characteristics" of Macanese identity. The investigation particularly reads Henrique de Senna Fernandes’s fiction as a literary device that stages this intermediary position: a loyalty to the colonial status quo accompanied by a selective absorption of Chinese repertoires and those from other Lusophone geographies (India and Southeast Asia). Methodologically, the article links interpretive analysis of literary discourse with a critical review of anthropological and historical-cultural contributions on Macanese identity, emphasizing the relationship between belonging, social class, and historical adaptation throughout the twentieth century. It concludes that "fiction" functions both as the elaboration of an identity myth and as an archive of the diaspora’s internal tensions, revealing how the group’s survival depended on ongoing negotiations between a "Portuguese" heritage, reconfigurations in the face of Chinese growing influence, and strategies of social acceptance. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |