The just-released second issue of Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies focuses on Chinese in Australasia and the southwest Pacific. It features articles by Barry McGowan, Mei-Fen Kuo, Benjamin Penny, Sophie Couchman and Brian Moloughney, among others. The journal is bilingual.

I was particularly interested to note Moloughney’s report on the project to create an online database from Alexander Don’s Roll of the Chinese. I have a hard copy of Don’s Roll, in the form of volume four of James Ng’s Windows on a Chinese Past (Otago Heritage Books, 1993-1999), but the potential of the database is great. I’ve been reading up on prosopography and last week attended a great conference on collective biography – and am quite taken by the idea of what databases like these can contribute to our understanding of the Chinese in Australia (or NZ). There are a whole bunch of records out there just crying to be turned into an in-depth prosopographical study!