
Inconvenient Strangers
Transnational Subjects and the Politics of Citizenship
Shui-yin Sharon Yam(Author)
Ohio State University Press
Published on 27. September 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
232 pages
978-0-8142-5551-3 (ISBN)
Description
Winner, 2021 CCCC Outstanding Book Award
Inconvenient Strangers: Transnational Subjects and the Politics of Citizenship draws attention to how intersecting networks of power-particularly race and ethnicity, gender, and social class-marginalize transnational subjects who find themselves outside a dominant citizenship that privileges familiarity and socioeconomic and racial superiority. In this study of how neoliberal ideas limit citizenship for marginalized populations in Hong Kong, Shui-yin Sharon Yam examines how three transnational groups-mainland Chinese maternal tourists, Southeast Asian migrant domestic workers, and South Asian permanent residents-engage with the existing citizenry and gain recognition through circulating personal narratives.
Coupling transnational feminist studies with research on emotions, Yam analyzes court cases, interviews, social media discourse, and the personal narratives of Hong Kong's marginalized groups to develop the concept of deliberative empathy-critical empathy that prompts an audience to consider the structural sources of another's suffering while deliberating one's own complicity in it. Yam argues that storytelling and familial narratives can promote deliberative empathy among the audience as both a political and ethical response-carrying the affective power to jolt the dominant citizenry out of their usual xenophobic attitudes and ultimately prompt them to critically consider the human conditions they share with the marginalized and move them toward more ethical coalitions.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Columbus, OH
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
383 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8142-5551-3 (9780814255513)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Shui-yin Sharon Yam is Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies at the University of Kentucky.