Asianness in motion: online cultures and everyday spatio-temporality

The thesis examines the everyday and embodied identity practices of young Asian Australians, investigating how structures of race operate within the highly affective and digitally mediated spheres shaping their encounters. Focusing on the popular Facebook group Subtle Asian Traits (SAT), with 1.9 million members, and interviews with Asian Australians who actively engage with content around race online, it interrogates how dominant articulations of ‘Asianness’ cohere. This thesis argues that digital cultures organised around race are key to contemporary negotiations of selfhood and, while they offer comfort, this comfort comes at the expense of making certain experiences of racialisation and local distinctions unspeakable.