Popular culture in the time of Greater Nanyang
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23310862 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Caroline S Hau (Kyoto University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-18 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1464-9373 • E-ISSN: 1469-8447 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14649373.2026.2699597 |
| OpenAlex | W7170851739 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 26 |
Cognisant of the multivalent, shifting meanings of “Nanyang” as a spatiotemporal, geopolitical, geo-economic, and cultural unit, this article seeks to flesh out the concept of “Popular Nanyang” by bringing in the contributions of popular culture from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. Historically, ethnic Chinese played an important role in the creation of “the popular,” albeit often dismissed as commercial or of low cultural value, in the plurilingual settings of their respective domiciles. Their networked production, distribution, circulation, consumption, and (e)valuation of popular culture helped substantiate the reach and bounds of “Nanyang” as geography, market, and regional imaginary. This article reclaims and repurposes the term “Greater Nanyang” to give weight to Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao as hubs for the multi-sited co-creation of the Popular Nanyang from the Cold War era to the end of the twentieth century. The Greater Nanyang concept highlights the historicity, materiality, politics, economies, ecologies, and cultures of localisation, meaning-making, and value creation that underpin place-, identity-, and claim-making in, across, and beyond the region. The temporal depth of Popular Nanyang also raises questions about Sinophone assumptions of the convergence of language, audience, cultural literacy, and ethnicity in the production, circulation, and consumption of popular culture.
Consumption (sociology) · Convergence (economics) · Ethnic group · Popular culture · Popular media · Value (mathematics) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics
Pop Culture China
Rethinking Transnational Chinese Cinemas
The Cold War in Asia
China and the Shaping of Indonesia
Early Film Culture in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Republican China
Wei Yüan and China’s Rediscovery of the Maritime World
Fetish, Recognition, Revolution
History, Culture, and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives
Chinese’ Indonesians in national cinema 1
Islam et sinité
The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History
A History of Islam in Indonesia
Forms of Censorship in the Dutch Indies
Xiqu in the Philippines
The Lost Keychain? Contemporary Chinese-Language Writing in Indonesia
Diverse fragility, fragile diversity
Bifurcated homeland and diaspora politics in China and Taiwan towards the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |