On “Mesearch”

In this article, the author reflects on his personal and intellectual formation as a Hong Kong–born Chinese American scholar studying the British eighteenth century to grapple with the long-standing essentialist dismissal of scholarship by/about minoritized scholars as “mesearch.” The author considers how his own vexed experiences of racialization have shaped his scholarly practices, interests, and critical objects that have explicitly departed from his racial and ethnic identities. By examining the contested histories surrounding Hong Kong, he contemplates how his birthplace has impacted his own contested sense of self as a multiply marginalized scholar. This article asks who gets to be exempt from these questions of “mesearch” and its legitimacy in the academy, when all meaningful scholarly work has always been “mesearch.”