ABSTRACT

In this essay, we stage a conversation about our experiences researching everyday histories of encounter between Asian and Asian diasporic subjects during the Pacific and Vietnam Wars. Through readings of materials from the archives of two empires, Britain and the United States, with bloody records of military intervention in east and south-east Asia, we show how wartime inter-Asian, Afro-Asian, and Asian diasporic geographies of relation overlapped with and animated one another, helping to (re)produce trans-local communities of affinity over space and time even as they also functioned as infrastructures for empire. Throughout, we reflect on the infrastructures – material, institutional, epistemological, affective – that make inter-referencing possible, both for our subjects and, importantly, for ourselves. If our archives resonate, what does this tell us about the trans-imperial durability of the intimate infrastructures we show taking shape in 1940s China and 1960s Vietnam respectively?

摘要

在本文中，我们进行了一次对话，讨论了我们在太平洋和越南战争期间研究亚洲和亚洲侨民之间日常相遇历史的经历。通过阅读英国和美国两个帝国的档案资料，以及在东亚和东南亚的军事干预的流血记录，我们可以看出战时亚洲，非裔和亚洲侨民之间的地理关系是如何重叠的彼此互动并相互促进，即使它们也充当帝国的基础设施，也有助于（重新）产生跨时空关系的跨本地社区。在整个过程中，我们会反思基础结构（物质，制度，认识论，情感），这些基础结构使我们的研究对象，甚至更重要的是我们自己，都可以进行相互参照。如果我们的档案引起共鸣，