Diasporas, Weddings and the Trajectories of Ethnicity

Terence Heng is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Liverpool. He is the author of Visual Methods in the Field: Photography for the Social Sciences (2016) and Of Gods, Gifts and Ghosts: Spiritual Places in Urban Spaces (2020). His work has been featured in Area, The Sociological Review, Social and Cultural Geography, and Visual Communication, and is the 2015 winner of The Sociological Review’s Prize for Outstanding Scholarship.

"On the face of it, the idea of people ‘making’ their ethnicities may seem unremarkable, but there is nothing ordinary about Terence Heng’s book. Through the use of wedding photography, Heng explores the ways in which Chinese Singaporeans engage in ‘taste performances’ associated with different forms of ethnic lifestyles. This original book will have inter-disciplinary appeal for both students and scholars of diaspora, ethnicity, and contested understandings of Chineseness." Miri Song, Professor of Sociology, University of Kent"This is a beautiful, poetic and visually stunning exploration of Chinese Singaporean transdiasporic ethnicity. Intimate and political at the same time, it unpacks wedding rituals, objects and photography for their deeper meanings and social significance in making ethnicity."Caroline Knowles, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London

• Introduction1. Reconceptualising Diasporic Space as Transdiasporic Space2. Configuring Transdiasporic Ethnicity, Ethnic Lifestyles and Ethnic Tastes3. Weddings as Sites of Ethnicity-Making4. Observation, Photography and Poetry – A Methodological Framework of Creative Practice and Social Research5. A Visual Introduction to Singapore and Singaporean Chineseness6. Taste Performances: Making Ethnic Lifestyles Interactive7. Ethnic Taste and Aesthetic Dissonance8. Ethnic Taste, Everyday Commercial Activities and the Commercially Dominant Wedding Aesthetic9. Conclusion: Aesthetic Dissonance, Ethnic Hybridity and Economic Life-PathsEpilogue: Look on My Hands and See it There