Counter-Orientalisms and the Politics of Hair, Clubbing and Dating

Abstract

In the last two empirical chapters, processes of Orientalism were explored in their role of shaping the racialisation of young Vietnamese people, leading to their complex and contradictory positioning as ‘Other’ in British society. British-born Vietnamese people’s perceptions of their positioning to other minority ethnic groups were also explored in relation to the impact upon their sense of inclusion and belonging in Britain (Chapter 4). In this chapter, these lines of enquiry are extended by looking at the ways in which young Vietnamese people engage in positioning work to create new ‘Oriental’ identities in London as a response to their sense of invisibility and marginality in the multiethnic context. It is argued, rather than being passive recipients of processes of Orientalism and Oriental categorisations, participants can actively engage with these to assert forms of personal agency and cultivate new identities through strategies of counter-Orientalism. Practices of hairstyling, dress, clubbing and dating are analysed to demonstrate how these young Vietnamese people appropriate and subvert Oriental discourses and racism through the use of creative and symbolic agency to temporarily shift the power of discourse (Butler 1993). The chapter begins by exploring how young Vietnamese people draw upon and subvert Orientalist discourses to perform new identities through narratives and performances of style, image and symbolic power.