Name: What is belonging?
Start: 2026-02-26T16:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-02-26T18:30:00+00:00
Location: Advanced Research Centre (ARC), University of Glasgow, seminar room 237C

Thinking about migration, citizenship and identity through the documentary film Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China (2014)
About this Event

Join us for an immersive evening exploring the intertwined threads of migration, identity, and belonging. This special event brings together brings together academic scholars Rachel Chin, Yichi Zhang, and Kirsten Adkins for a rich conversation on the histories and emotional geographies that shape diasporic, migrant and migrant-descended lives.

We begin with a screening of the award-winning documentary Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China. The film follows three siblings from Harlem, as they travel from New York to Toronto, Jamaica and China, to discover their Chinese-Jamaican heritage and to connect with a family they were unaware of. Their journey highlights a specific history, of Chinese migration to Jamaica, while also developing broader themes around family, memory, home and mixed-race identity.

The screening will be followed by a lively roundtable Q&A, which invites the audience to participate in an engaging and thoughtful discussion.

All are welcome.

For more information about the film, please check the website: http://findingsamuellowe.com/

Rachel Chin is a lecturer in History based at the University of Glasgow. Her most recent work explores 20th century Chinese migration to Jamaica through the lenses of empire, citizenship and belonging.

Yichi Zhang is an anthropologist whose work centres on the emotional lives of the Chinese community in Kingston. Her research explores minority feelings such as loneliness, belonging, and togetherness, tracing how these emotions shape migrant lives in both past and present.

Kirsten Adkins is an artist and filmmaker who has a professional background in documentary television. Kirsten’s filmmaking and writing practice is concerned with stories of home, belonging and migration. She is currently working on a forthcoming edited anthology and curated project space where artists and filmmakers use hybrid practices in film, poetry, song and dance to provoke questions on place, identity and belonging.