Yao Xiao

I take this presentation as an opportunity to share with you how “decolonization” might be Sinicized, and how a Chinese subject like myself might engage with decolonization differently. Based on autobiographical stories, research projects, and informal conversations with community friends, I unpack the affect of Chinese pride for its decolonial relevance in at least two landscapes: (1) in a landscape of international intellectual work, the anxiously ascending Sinophone interests in dealing with/learning beyond Euro-American academic influences; (2) in a landscape of grassroots lives and activism, the mixed compassion, commitment, as well as confusion in speaking with/learning from people who situate and still struggle in webs of metropoles and margins.