Chinatown Urbanism: Architecture, Migrancy, and Modernity in East Asia

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Calling into question normative versions of architectural history written primarily from the perspective of discrete nation-states, my dissertation takes transnational spaces of Chinatowns as a point of departure to reflect upon networks that have enabled the production of architecture and urbanism on a global scale. Despite the historical significance embedded in the development of Chinatown as a uniquely global form, I contend that the full import of this process has not been fully recognized, thereby failing to engage with Chinatowns that simultaneously came to emerge elsewhere across geographic boundaries. My dissertation thus draws together seemingly discrete urban entities, from San Francisco and Yokohama to Shanghai and Incheon, and examines cross-regional flows of people, things, and ideas which have shaped East Asia's Chinatowns as affectively charged spaces of power and identity.