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Nicholas Tapp

Under a Chiang Ching-kuo Research Project, ‘Communal Diasporic Voluntary Public Cultures’, Nicholas Tapp examined the impact of returns of overseas Hmong migrants to their Asian homelands, in collaboration with Dr Gary Yia Lee. They worked in China, Thailand, Laos and Australia, as well as France and the USA. An Emeritus Professor of ANU, Nicholas was mainly based in Shanghai where he continued his research on ethnic issues in China and also assisted East China Normal University in Shanghai to develop a new programme of anthropology.

Dr Nicholas Tapp passed away in October 2015.

The Hmong of Australia »

Culture and Diaspora

Edited by: Nicholas Tapp, Gary Yia Lee

Publication date: November 2010

The Hmong are among Australia’s newest immigrant populations. They came as refugees from Laos after the communist revolution of 1975 ended their life there as highland shifting cultivators. The Hmong originate from southern China where many still remain, and others live in Vietnam, Thailand and Burma. Hmong refugees are now also settled in the USA, Canada, France, Germany and French Guyana. Already the beauty and richness of traditional Hmong culture, in particular their shamanism and embroidered costume, has attracted the attention of the Australian public, but little is known about these people, their background or the struggles they have faced to adjust to a new life in Australia.This interdisciplinary collection of articles deals with their music and textiles, gender and language, their social adaptation and their global diaspora. The book aims to bring knowledge of the Hmong to a wider public and contribute to the understanding of these people.

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