Foreign places, hybrid spaces

Abstract

Acknowledging the often-noted efficacy of music in identity construction, I propose that music in the Chinese-Australian Catholic and Buddhist communities of Sydney is as much a tool in aid of social adhesion and personal identification as it is affected and constantly transformed by the trials of migrant life. The musical product, then, is something undeniably syncretic, hybrid, and malleable, with undercurrents of sub-cultural hegemony in the highly 'multi-national' demography of the Sydney Chinese diaspora. Although mainly a contemporary study, this discourse extends back to the year 1954, a particular turning period in Chinese-Australian history due to two significant events: the beginning of the end of the White Australia Policy, and the start of the gradual change in the Chinese population with the admittance of Chinese background migrants from various parts of Asia.