‘I also Melayu ok’ – Malay-Chinese women negotiating the ambivalence of biraciality for agentic autonomy

Racialisation is the process of imbuing a body with meaning (Ahmed). Rockquemore et al.’s study on American Black-White middle-class college youth emphasises the importance of phenotypes in interracial children because “physical appearance is the primary cue for racial group membership… and remains...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Abidin, Crystal
Format: Journal Article
Published: M/C - Media and Culture 2014
Online Access:http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/879
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/79376
Description
Summary:Racialisation is the process of imbuing a body with meaning (Ahmed). Rockquemore et al.’s study on American Black-White middle-class college youth emphasises the importance of phenotypes in interracial children because “physical appearance is the primary cue for racial group membership… and remains the greatest factor in how mixed-race children are classified by others” (114). Wilson’s work on British mixed race 6 to 9-year-olds argues that interracial children classify other children based on how “they locate themselves in the racial structure and how they feel about the various racial groups” (64).