A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Zhaocaimao (Lucky Cat) Constructed by the Chinese Communities in ...

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" A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Zhaocaimao (Lucky Cat) Constructed by the Chinese Communities in South Africa "
Binjun Hu

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1063568
Doc. No	:	LA107197
Call No	:	‭10.1163/15692108-12341448‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Binjun Hu
Title & Author	:	A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Zhaocaimao (Lucky Cat) Constructed by the Chinese Communities in South Africa [Article]\ Binjun Hu
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	African and Asian Studies
Date	:	2020
Volume/ Issue Number	:	19/1-2
Page No	:	99–132
Abstract	:	This paper traces how Maneki-Neko becomes appropriated by a specific demographic of people (mostly business owners) in China as Zhaocaimao since the 1980s, and travels with the recent Chinese migrants to South Africa after Apartheid. It aims to demonstrate how the flows of people and cultural symbols were mutually constructed through the ongoing, intersected process of adaptation and appropriation in new territories. A multimodal discourse analysis was performed on texts and images collected from interviews with ten people in Johannesburg’s Chinatowns. The paper arises from the conceptual backdrop of Sanders’s (2015) theory on adaptation and appropriation and Appadurai’s (1990) work on disjunctures in the politics of global culture. It argues that the process of sustained engagement between Maneki-Neko and the Chinese people who have appropriated it is mutually constructed and undergoes constant geopolitically embedded transformations of sinification as Maneki-Neko travels to new circumstances and contexts. Notably, the transnational appropriation and adaption of cultural symbols from folk traditions in a diasporic context create a sense of empowerment and ownership. Zhaocaimao in South Africa has become a symbol of a micro-identity against the backdrop of the disjunctive global economy and culture of today which turns the locality into a discursive field of Chinese identity/Chineseness and a site of ritual economy. This paper traces how Maneki-Neko becomes appropriated by a specific demographic of people (mostly business owners) in China as Zhaocaimao since the 1980s, and travels with the recent Chinese migrants to South Africa after Apartheid. It aims to demonstrate how the flows of people and cultural symbols were mutually constructed through the ongoing, intersected process of adaptation and appropriation in new territories. A multimodal discourse analysis was performed on texts and images collected from interviews with ten people in Johannesburg’s Chinatowns. The paper arises from the conceptual backdrop of Sanders’s (2015) theory on adaptation and appropriation and Appadurai’s (1990) work on disjunctures in the politics of global culture. It argues that the process of sustained engagement between Maneki-Neko and the Chinese people who have appropriated it is mutually constructed and undergoes constant geopolitically embedded transformations of sinification as Maneki-Neko travels to new circumstances and contexts. Notably, the transnational appropriation and adaption of cultural symbols from folk traditions in a diasporic context create a sense of empowerment and ownership. Zhaocaimao in South Africa has become a symbol of a micro-identity against the backdrop of the disjunctive global economy and culture of today which turns the locality into a discursive field of Chinese identity/Chineseness and a site of ritual economy.
Descriptor	:	adaptation
Descriptor	:	appropriation
Descriptor	:	Chineseness
Descriptor	:	diaspora
Descriptor	:	Maneki-Neko
Descriptor	:	Zhaocaimao (招财猫)
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/15692108-12341448‬