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The Concept of Centrality in Chinese Diaspora
Author(s) -
Shen Vincent
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
religion compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.113
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1749-8171
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00328.x
Subject(s) - centrality , harmony (color) , diaspora , meaning (existential) , homeland , politics , metaphysics , root (linguistics) , psychology , epistemology , social psychology , sociology , political science , philosophy , gender studies , linguistics , law , art , mathematics , combinatorics , visual arts
Chinese people in diasporas , though far from their homeland, still refer to the concept of centrality as defining their own Chineseness. The meaning of “centrality” has its religious, metaphysical, psychological and political layers. This paper offers a comprehensive survey of the development of understanding of the meaning of this concept from Tang Junyi (1909–1978) to today’s leading Chinese intellectuals and attempts to update Tang’s model of Self‐replanting of Spiritual Root (lingen zizhi 靈根自植) to the model of Altruistic Extension for Harmony (hexie waitui 和諧外推) by way of mutual strangification.