Abstract

ABSTRACT
Chinese Diasporic Films: A Case Study in Transnational Cinema
David Hanley
In the 1980s and 90s, the mobile populations that have characterized our increasingly globalized world and the resultant creation of diasporic communities has been reflected in a large number of transnational films that challenge the model of national cinema. Diasporic films, which are acutely concerned with identity and examine the tension between assimilation and retention of the immigrant’s home culture are transnational as they belong entirely neither to the adopted country in which they are made nor the homeland which they look back to. This study examines films made in roughly the same period that belong to a pan-Chinese diaspora, but are produced in the distinct geographical and cultural contexts of Taiwan and North America. Using a model influenced by the work of Hamid Naficy, this thesis performs a close analysis of these films by exploring the differing ways in which they represent “home” space (the ethnic enclave which can serve as either fortress or prison), “host” space (the often hostile area dominated by the host community) and “intermediate” space (the borderline territory where competing ethnicities interact) in expressing the strategies and negotiations central to the immigrant experience. In this way, this thesis aspires to map out the process in which the global is transformed into a multitude of hybrids through contact with local contexts.