Abstract
Benedict Anderson regards nation as a socially constructed “imagined
community.” The imaginative nature of the nation implies the possibility
of shifting personal belonging to a geographically identified area from
reality to a virtual network shared by the people who hold the same self-
identification. The development of websites that serve Chinese diaspora
reinforces the overseas Chinese’s emotional and epistemological connection
to mainland China. By analyzing BrasilCN.com 巴西華人網, which is the
first Chinese-language website that has offered news, quotidian information
and forum communication to Brazilian Chinese since 2009, this research
paper will structurally reveal how its selected provision of knowledge related
to China and its forum platform for group conversation deliver a sense of
racial support that differentiates the users from local Brazilians. It holds
an argument that the intersectionality of the identity of Brazilian Chinese
causes the hybridity of the content of BrazilCN.com and creates a demand
for connecting between two sides, instead of solely solving daily problems
of living in Brazil or reminiscent problems of being physically isolated from
China. The posted information reveals that the users’ requests related to
Brazil and China are imbalanced. There are tensions between localization
and cultural estrangement.
community.” The imaginative nature of the nation implies the possibility
of shifting personal belonging to a geographically identified area from
reality to a virtual network shared by the people who hold the same self-
identification. The development of websites that serve Chinese diaspora
reinforces the overseas Chinese’s emotional and epistemological connection
to mainland China. By analyzing BrasilCN.com 巴西華人網, which is the
first Chinese-language website that has offered news, quotidian information
and forum communication to Brazilian Chinese since 2009, this research
paper will structurally reveal how its selected provision of knowledge related
to China and its forum platform for group conversation deliver a sense of
racial support that differentiates the users from local Brazilians. It holds
an argument that the intersectionality of the identity of Brazilian Chinese
causes the hybridity of the content of BrazilCN.com and creates a demand
for connecting between two sides, instead of solely solving daily problems
of living in Brazil or reminiscent problems of being physically isolated from
China. The posted information reveals that the users’ requests related to
Brazil and China are imbalanced. There are tensions between localization
and cultural estrangement.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 303-314 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | International Journal of China Studies |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2018 |
User-Defined Keywords
- Brazilian Chinese
- mainland China
- BrasilCN.com
- networking
- culture
- communication