TY - JOUR
T1 - The Chinese Invasion
T2 - Settler Colonialism and the metaphoric construction of race
AU - Martin, Catherine
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - The arrival of Chinese immigrants during the Australian goldrushes of the 1850s precipitated a vehement backlash, culminating in legislation to restrict their immigration. Contemporary Australian press discourse focused on Chinese racial difference, with immigrants metaphorically constructed as invaders, influxes and hordes of barbarians. This article argues that Chinese immigrants were racialised through pre-existing metaphoric language of deviance and threat, while the metaphors became simultaneously codified as signifiers of racial difference. It further argues that this characterisation resulted from settler-colonial anxieties about legitimacy, which intensified due to Chinese immigration. The consequent racialisation of Chinese immigrants functioned as a means to displace both the violence of settler-colonial invasion and lower-class white deviance, facilitating the construction of the egalitarian white Australian subject.
AB - The arrival of Chinese immigrants during the Australian goldrushes of the 1850s precipitated a vehement backlash, culminating in legislation to restrict their immigration. Contemporary Australian press discourse focused on Chinese racial difference, with immigrants metaphorically constructed as invaders, influxes and hordes of barbarians. This article argues that Chinese immigrants were racialised through pre-existing metaphoric language of deviance and threat, while the metaphors became simultaneously codified as signifiers of racial difference. It further argues that this characterisation resulted from settler-colonial anxieties about legitimacy, which intensified due to Chinese immigration. The consequent racialisation of Chinese immigrants functioned as a means to displace both the violence of settler-colonial invasion and lower-class white deviance, facilitating the construction of the egalitarian white Australian subject.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118432518&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14443058.2021.1992480
DO - 10.1080/14443058.2021.1992480
M3 - Article
SN - 0314-769X
VL - 45
SP - 543
EP - 559
JO - Journal of Australian Studies
JF - Journal of Australian Studies
IS - 4
ER -