本文主要关注自二十一世纪以来岛屿东南亚三国，即马来西亚、新加坡与印尼华人作家书写中所呈现有关移民经验的日常情感，意在于以此为思考的起点，调解华人或华语文学研究中“离散”与“反离散”阵营之间的机械化对立，在目前已有的“离散/反离散”范式下提出可能的新路径，并借以重新思考移民文学在世界文学理论的定位以及世界文学理论“中心—边缘”逻辑的局限性。近年来华人文学“离散/反离散”范式在理论上出现了固化的局限，包括“离散”意涵过于泛化、“苦难-回归”模式的阴魂不散、无法摆脱“中心—边缘”的既定逻辑以及无法全面反映更细腻的变化等问题。本文提议以情感替代身份认同理解移民主体，即“移民情感”。移民情感指的是一种非本质主义倾向的情感，喻示移动主体（及其分裂生成的新主体）无以名状的情感无限不断地“延异”生产与再造。本文提出除了移民主体在移动中所呈现的离散性之外，移民主体往往也有前往并建设新世界的欲望。本文继而主张移民主体的日常情感体验只有在二者相互拉扯、竞争、融合等移动的情感光谱中审视，才得以见全。同时，本文亦提出离散之“势”以说明移民主体不但可能对故国他乡抱有离散之感，更暗示了每一个移民主体都有再度移动而重启离散情感的潜力。

具体而言，本文通过分析王赓武回忆录与杨谦来《阿福》，得以发现从中国到南洋并非同质的单向移动，其过程是复杂的、情感是细致多变的，并凸显了移动主体分裂与移民情感的延宕。以此，本文回应身份认同范式的局限，提醒情感范式的必要。接着，新加坡作为全球流动的典型缩影，中国新移民的书写则回应了新世界生成现场与情感流动的关系。陈济舟《物种和起源》与随庭《孕鱼》展现了流动的移民主体与情感。“流动—动物”是他们抵达新世界现场后移动所产生的高强度身体变化使得身体难以负荷、情感溢出于身体之外，于移动的情感光谱中，亟待寻找出逃口刻不容缓的实践。再者，印尼华裔作家汤顺利的后记忆书写则反映了岛与岛之间移动的经验带来的情感力量，通过反复书写邦加岛“好客”的方式寻求族裔之间和睦或社会和平，为自己身为印尼华人所背负结构性文化创伤的历史过去达成某种和解。以此，本文通过汤顺利的邦加岛书写立证移动的文学如何成为“新世界”的规范性力量。本文认为，作为最大的公约数，三者皆呈现了移民情感的“岛屿性”——即“以移民为世界”的特征。移动的情感光谱不断流动或游移于趋近中心与边缘之间。它们是延异的、是瞬间的、是关系性的身心状态。

最后，岛屿东南亚华人文学作为新世界文学的实践，告诉我们中心与边缘空间是流动的，反映了移民移动的文学作为生力军，游离于文学世界的同心圆之间，不断地对（复数的）世界文学的当今样貌的塑造作出了重要的贡献。

This thesis focuses on the everyday emotions of the immigrant experience as presented in the writings of ethnic Chinese writers from three countries in Southeast Asia, namely Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, since the contemporary era (twenty-first century), with the intention of using this as a starting point to mediate the rigid opposition between the “diaspora” and “anti-diaspora” camps in ethnic Chinese or Sinophone literary studies, to propose possible new framework under the existing “diaspora/anti-diaspora” paradigm, and to rethink the position of immigrant literature in world literary theory and the limitations of the “center-periphery” logic of world literary theory. In recent years, the “diaspora/anti-diaspora” paradigm of Sinophone literature has experienced theoretical limitations, including the over-generalization of the meaning of “diaspora”, the persistence of the “suffering-return” model, the inability to escape from the “center-periphery” paradigm and cannot fully reflect the subtler changes. In this paper, I propose to understand the immigrant subject with emotions instead of identity, i.e. “migration affect”. Migration affect refers to a non-essentialist tendency of emotion, which is a metaphor for the “différance” production and reproduction of inexpressible emotions of the subject in motion (and the new subject that is created by its division). The paper suggests that in addition to the diaspora nature of the migrant subject on the move, the migrant subject often also has the desire to travel to and build new worlds. The paper goes on to argue that the everyday emotional experience of migrant subjects can only be seen in its entirety when examined in the context of the affect spectrum of migration in which the pull, compete, and integrate with each other. At the same time, the paper also proposes the “potential” of separation to suggest that immigrant subjects may not only feel separated from their homeland, but also implies that each immigrant subject has the potential to move again and revive their separated emotions.

Through the analysis of Wang Gungwu’s memoirs and Jong Chian Lai’s Ah Fook, this paper states that the movement from China to the South Seas is not a homogeneous one-way movement, but a complex and emotionally nuanced process, and highlights the splitting of the moving subject and the delayed emotions of migration. In this way, the paper responds to the limitations of the identity paradigm and reminds the necessity of the affective paradigm. Then, Singapore as a typical microcosm of global mobility, the writing of new Chinese immigrants responds to the relationship between the site of new world generation and emotional mobility. Chen Jizhou’s Species and Origin and Sui Ting’s Pregnant Fish show the immigrant subjects and emotions in motion. The “becoming-animal” is the intense physical changes generated by their movement after arriving at the new world site, which makes the body unloadable and the emotions overflow outside the body, and the urgent need to find an escape point in the affect spectrum of migration. Furthermore, the post-memory writing of the Indonesian-Chinese writer Alexander Sunlie Thomas reflects the emotional power of the experience of moving from island to island, seeking inter-ethnic harmony or social peace by repeatedly writing about the “hospitality” of Bangka Island, and reaching reconciliation for the historical past of structural cultural trauma that he carries as a Chinese Indonesian. In this way, this paper demonstrates how migrant literature can be a normative force in the “new world” through Sunlie’s writing on Bangka Island. The paper argues that, as the common denominator, all three present the “islandness” of immigrant emotions - that is, the “migration as the world” characteristic. The spectrum of moving emotions constantly flows or drifts between the center and the periphery. They are différance, transient, and relational states of mind and body.

Finally, the practice of ethnic Chinese literature in island Southeast Asia as New World literature tells us that the central and marginal spaces are fluid, reflecting the literature of migrant mobility as a living force, wandering between the concentric circles of the literary world and constantly making an important contribution to the shaping of (plural) world literature as it is today.