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Identity (re)construction, return destination selection and place attachment among Chinese academic returnees: A case study of Guangzhou, China
... While prior studies have focused on returnees emigration intent [21], identity conflicts [22], place identity [23], and academic struggles [20], few focused on mental health issues from a cognitive perspective to probe how different perceptions such as residency, emigration intent, and belief in fate would alter mental health outcomes in a holistic manner. ...
... When confronted with challenges from the new environment, international students with a strong sense of place identity (agency thinking) might rely on their environmental past [34], which includes past experiences and memories, to preserve their connection to the place and offer a sense of hope to go back to the place they feel attached to when facing stressful situations [36,37]. This agency thinking of place identity and attachment might include both a pro-home nation place identity [23], as well as a pro-host-nation place identity [38]. ...
... Given the trend of global talent mobilization, it is foreseeable that more and more international student returnees will go back to their home country to seek family reunions and career development opportunities. While prior studies have touched upon international student returnees reacculturation from the perspective of place identity [23], identity clusters and emigration intent [21], and locus of control [41,43], limited studies have been conducted to present the mental well-being issue of returnees through the lens a comprehensive lens of hope to connect all the above. Therefore, to this end, this current study aims to bridge the gap by examining Chinese international student returnees' depression levels associated with agency thinking and pathway thinking. ...
Background
The mental health of Chinese international student returnees is a critical concern impacting their well-being and successful reintegration into home society, especially in the post-COVID-19 era. This study examines how beliefs about changing living conditions, emigration intentions, and belief in fate influence depression levels among these returnees.
Methods
A cross-sectional survey collected data from 1,014 returnees through WeChat public groups. Depression levels were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and Bayesian analysis with Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms was employed for statistical examination.
Findings
It was found that a stronger belief that changing one's living environment can bring happiness is associated with lower depression levels, highlighting the positive role of agency thinking in mental health. This association is moderated by emigration intentions and belief in fate. Specifically, among returnees who believe that changing living conditions enhances happiness, those with stronger intentions to emigrate from China exhibited lower depression levels, while those with a strong belief in fate showed higher depression levels.
Implications
These results suggest that both agency and pathway thinking significantly affect the mental health of returnees. To support their well-being and reintegration, we recommend that policymakers create more diverse and inclusive environments within China that accommodate returnees' aspirations. Educational institutions should offer counseling services that bolster returnees' proactive strategies for achieving personal goals. Additionally, mental health interventions should address cultural beliefs, such as fatalism, which might hinder proactive coping mechanisms.
... This attachment is fueled by a complex interplay of personal experiences, memorable interactions, and the perceived uniqueness of the destination, going beyond the transactional nature of conventional tourism and transforming into a more significant and emotionally resonant relationship between the traveler and the destination (Jian, Lin, & Zhou, 2021 behavioral intentions, with the emotional bond cultivated during a visit fostering a sense of loyalty and a desire to perpetuate the positive experiences associated with that particular destination (Kim, Choe, & Petrick, 2018). Tourists who develop a high level of attachment are more inclined to become repeat visitors, thereby contributing to the sustained growth of the destination's tourism industry and emerging as effective advocates (Ma, Tan, & Li, 2023). Their personal experiences could become a powerful tool for word-of-mouth promotion, persuading others to choose the same destination. ...
... The impact of destination attachment on shaping willingness to visit is considerable. When individuals forge solid emotional ties with a destination, their inclination to revisit or explore it for the first time will likely be positively impacted (Ma et al., 2023;Patwardhan et al., 2020). The emotional bond fostered through positive experiences, memorable interactions, and a sense of belonging contributes to an augmented desire to return or delve deeper into the destination. ...
Theory of planned behavior (TPB) had been used repeatedly by various researchers to analyze human’s behavior. Utilizing this framework, this research attempts to fully investigate various variables which could affect tourists’ willingness to visit Bintan Island in Riau Island, Indonesia. Questionnaires were used to gather data from the qualified respondents who’ve visited Bintan Island at least once in the past 1 year. Next, a non-probability sampling in the form of purposive sampling was implemented in order to ensure that all respondents who filled in the questionnaires had satisfied the criteria. After distributing the questionnaires to the respondents for around 4 months, a total of 198 data had been successfully gathered from the respondents. However, after further assessment, 24 data need to be omitted since these data were filled in by respondents who failed to fulfill the respondents’ criteria set in this study, thus confirming that a total 174 data will be further assessed in this research using PLS-SEM method using SmartPLS 4 software. After analyzing these data, authors concluded that all three main variables within the TPB theory, namely attitude, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms, together with destination attachment, significantly and positively affect tourists’ willingness to visit Bintan Island.
... Prior studies on Chinese returnees' reacculturation, although not explicitly focusing on mental health, might offer some insights into their acculturative stress. Several studies shed light on factors that caused returnees' acculturative distress in the post-COVID era in China, such as work-life balance (Liu et al., 2022), cybernationalism and outgroup bias (Jin and Wang, 2022), and lack of autonomy in career development (Ma et al., 2023). However, limited research has focused on transnational identity clusters and how different sojourners' transnational identity clusters might impact their acculturative distress during acculturation. ...
... However, in Eastern hierarchical societies such as China, the power distance is large between leaders and followers due to the concept that "the ruler being the principle of the followers" embedded in the Confucian "Three Principles" (Hofstede, 1984;King and Bond, 1985;Tan, 2015). Such a fundamental discrepancy in social structure and value prioritization between the West and China might cause identity conflicts and cognitive dissonances among navigators (Liu et al., 2022;Ma et al., 2023), which has been well-documented by other studies on returnee's mental health challenges when returning to traditional hierarchical societies after experiencing more egalitarian cultures abroad (Brabant et al., 1990). ...
Introduction
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reintegration of Chinese international student returnees intersects with China’s critical effort to combat a significant brain drain of highly skilled talents, highlighting an unprecedented psychological battleground. This convergence underscores the urgent need for nuanced research to navigate the uncharted territory of their mental health.
Methods
Employing Bayesian analysis supported by Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms, this study examined depression prevalence and associated factors among 1,014 Chinese returnees. The sample comprised 44.87% male participants (455), 51.58% female participants (523), and 3.55% identifying as “Others” (36), with an age distribution of 61.74% aged 18-30 (626), 28.80% aged 31-40 (292), and 9.47% aged 41-50 (96). The mean age of participants was 29.6 years, ranging from 18 to 50 years. PHQ-9 diagnoses revealed alarming levels of depression, with 47.9% exhibiting a moderately severe degree of depressive disorder.
Results
Our findings highlight the intricate interplay between identity clusters— “homestayers” (those leaning towards a Chinese cultural identity), “navigators” (those with a bicultural identity), and “wayfarers” (those leaning towards a foreign cultural identity)—and the likelihood of depression. Specifically, homestayers showed a clear and strong negative association, navigators demonstrated a positive association, and wayfarers had a positive yet unclear correlation with depression levels. Furthermore, acculturation, age, and gender showed no significant effects, whereas education mildly mitigated depression.
Discussion
Based on these findings, we suggest the implementation of better-tailored mental health support and policies to facilitate smoother reintegration.
... Different levels of the Chinese government have implemented various strategies to attract overseas talent to return to work, which could lead to a surge in the number of returnees (L. Ma et al. 2023). Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, and Chengdu have been identified as the most popular cities in China for attracting both Chinese returnees and workers from overseas (Centre for China and Globalization, 2019). ...
With technological and economic developments, several Chinese migrant families have returned to China from the West to China. Families with multilingual and multicultural backgrounds might experience more challenges in child-rearing than the locals. Drawing on a life-course perspective, we used a qualitative research method to investigate 18 Chinese returned migrant families with young children to enhance our understanding of the complex cultural and contextual issues in modern Chinese parenting. Findings reveal that individual experiences and family development are contextualised culturally and historically. The results highlight two contemporary Chinese socio-cultural factors, Tiger Mum and Lying Flat, which may influence Chinese parenting among the younger generation. Parenting is a complex, multidimensional, dynamic phenomenon. This study proposes that family migration experiences, family relationships, parents’ careers, and parenting styles should be considered to understand parental challenges better before resettlement.
... 170-171). A recent study though points to the fact that between 1978 and 2019 about 4,231,700 students -i.e., over 86 percent of all Chinese international students -returned upon completing their overseas studies; in 2019, about 580,300 Chinese students returned to China, a 12 percent increase from 2018 (Ma et al. 2023). ...
China´s city governments compete to achieve or maintain importance in today’s glo¬balised economy. Corresponding governmental strategies seek to attract and retain high-skilled Chinese return migrants, a group that is expected to stimulate and carry forward economic upgrading. The cities’ competition for those high-skilled return migrants is closely related to the development of high-tech development zones. In addition to industrial activities in the development zones, local governments create urban amenities by constructing special¬ly designed living spaces as well as facilities in the development zones. Considering the tense housing situation in China, efforts to provide appealing and affordable housing solutions are considered a promising strategy for attracting high-skilled return migrants.
Against this background, the article analyses, using the example of the two cities of Guangzhou and Dongguan (Pearl River Delta, China), two research questions: (1) What strategies do the municipal governments use to attract high-skilled return migrants – with what spatial consequences? (2) What are the most important factors and reasons for high-skilled return migrants when choosing their place of residence for resettlement? The empir¬ical study uses a mixed methods analysis of government and media reports, secondary data as well as qualitative interviews with experts and high-skilled return migrants.
Results show that despite the fact that both cities apply similar strategies to attract high-skilled return migrants, Guangzhou as a first-tier city remains more attractive to settle down permanently. The case of Dongguan’s Songshan Lake Science and Technology Industry Park provides relevant insights into a prevalent municipal strategy for attracting high-skilled return migrants by providing indemnificatory housing solutions. The strategy of providing dedicated housing estates can lead to a tendency towards spatial segregation. Further, the authors raise awareness to the importance of underlying demands and preferences in reset¬tlement behaviour when trying to attract high-skilled return migrants permanently.
... 170-171). A recent study though points to the fact that between 1978 and 2019 about 4,231,700 students -i.e., over 86 percent of all Chinese international students -returned upon completing their overseas studies; in 2019, about 580,300 Chinese students returned to China, a 12 percent increase from 2018 (Ma et al. 2023). ...
China´s city governments compete to achieve or maintain importance in today’s glo¬balised economy. Corresponding governmental strategies seek to attract and retain high-skilled Chinese return migrants, a group that is expected to stimulate and carry forward economic upgrading. The cities’ competition for those high-skilled return migrants is closely related to the development of high-tech development zones. In addition to industrial activities in the development zones, local governments create urban amenities by constructing special¬ly designed living spaces as well as facilities in the development zones. Considering the tense housing situation in China, efforts to provide appealing and affordable housing solutions are considered a promising strategy for attracting high-skilled return migrants.
Against this background, the article analyses, using the example of the two cities of Guangzhou and Dongguan (Pearl River Delta, China), two research questions: (1) What strategies do the municipal governments use to attract high-skilled return migrants – with what spatial consequences? (2) What are the most important factors and reasons for high-skilled return migrants when choosing their place of residence for resettlement? The empir¬ical study uses a mixed methods analysis of government and media reports, secondary data as well as qualitative interviews with experts and high-skilled return migrants.
Results show that despite the fact that both cities apply similar strategies to attract high-skilled return migrants, Guangzhou as a first-tier city remains more attractive to settle down permanently. The case of Dongguan’s Songshan Lake Science and Technology Industry Park provides relevant insights into a prevalent municipal strategy for attracting high-skilled return migrants by providing indemnificatory housing solutions. The strategy of providing dedicated housing estates can lead to a tendency towards spatial segregation. Further, the authors raise awareness to the importance of underlying demands and preferences in reset¬tlement behaviour when trying to attract high-skilled return migrants permanently.
This chapter examines AI's role in enhancing cultural intelligence in transnational higher education. AI tools personalize learning, enhance cross-cultural communication, and develop responsive curricula. The chapter addresses ethical concerns like data privacy and algorithmic bias while advocating for AI to foster inclusive learning environments. It explores AI's impact on curriculum design, assessment, and professional development, stressing ethical implementation and adaptation. The conclusion forecasts AI's influence on educational practices and cultural diversity appreciation.
Set against the booming reverse migration of scientific talents from developed nations to newly-emerged advanced economies, this study particularly examines the return of Chinese early career researchers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Deploying a mixed research design that integrates quantitative and qualitative traditions, it aims to address three prominent knowledge gaps surrounding this emergent pattern of transnational academic migration. According to survey results, caring duties, career prospects, and cultural attachments have consistently emerged as the primary drivers for returnees who received PhD training in various host destinations. In contrast, economic and lifestyle concerns were of much less import to those completing the doctorate in leading Anglophone countries. Stark gender disparities were also observed, with male returnees’ desire to secure cultural familiarity and upward mobility especially evident and their use of transnational academic networks more prevalent. Moreover, participants who made the decision to return toward the end of their overseas sojourn and whose doctoral education was sponsored by the Chinese government demonstrated a significantly higher likelihood of considering onward migratory movement. While largely corroborating the quantitative findings, interview data further highlights the vital role of a justice-oriented university environment in attracting high-skilled talents from across different axes of social disadvantage. Throughout, it points to the prospective stickiness of return migration instigated amidst the radical shifts in global science. We conclude the paper with critical reflections on our empirical and methodological focus.
This paper develops a theoretical argument for how place attachments are forged and become dynamically linked to increasingly common mobility practices. First, we argue that mobilities, rather than negating the importance of place, shift our understanding of place and the habitual ways we relate to and bond with places as distinct from a conception of place attachment premised on fixity and stability. Second, we document how the body of research on place attachment has both reinforced and contested ‘sedentaristic’ assumptions criticized within the so-called ‘mobilities turn’ in the social sciences. Third, we present a conceptual framework, built around different modes of interrelation between fixity and flow, as a way to re-theorize, link and balance the various studies of place attachment that have grappled with mobility. Finally, we sketch out the main research implications of this framework for advancing our understanding of place attachment in a mobile world.
Mining settlements are typically portrayed as either consisting of purpose-built housing constructed by mining companies to house their workers, or as temporary makeshift shelters built by miners working informally and inhabited by male migrants who live dangerously and develop little attachment to these places. This paper contributes to these debates on the social and material dynamics occurring in mining settlements, focusing on those with urban rather than rural characteristics, by highlighting how misconceived these archetypal portrayals are in the Ghanaian context. Drawing on qualitative data collected in three mining settlements, we explore who is moving to and living in the mining towns, who is building houses, and how attachments to place develop socio-temporally. Through doing so, the paper provides original insights on the heterogeneous nature of mining settlements, which are found to be home to a wide range of people engaged in diverse activities. Mining settlements and their attendant social dynamics are shown to evolve in differing ways, depending on the type of mining taking place and the length of time the mines have been in operation. Significantly, we illustrate how, contrary to popular understandings of incomers to mining settlements as nomadic opportunists, migrants often aspire to build their own houses and establish a family, which promotes their attachment to these settlements and their desire to remain. These insights further scholarship on the social and material configuration of mining settlements and feed into the revival of interest in small and intermediate urban settlements.
During the recent decades, new cities have been set up around Iranian main cities, after exclusive pre-planning and investigations. However, no significant research studies have concentrated on the level of place attachment (PA) and residential satisfaction (RS) of those residing in these areas, with regard to the existing apparent differences compared to older cities. The present study took advantage from the data gathered in Sadra new city initially to examine PA as a second order factor and then, to assess its relationship with RS. To do so, a survey was conducted on 201 respondents from Sadra new city and confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used to explore research model. The results of these analyses confirmed that PA as a second order factor consists of four identified dimensions, namely: place identity, place dependence, place social bonding, and place affect. Moreover, SEM analysis indicated appropriate level of goodness of fit demonstrated by the model proposed in this study, showing positive and significant effect of PA variable on RS.
Based on a study of U.S. public university employees from Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC), this article explores transnational practices among highly skilled migrants. Although our interviewees reported considering returning to their home countries or participating in onward migration to other nations, they prefer engagement in transnational practices on the professional and personal levels to long-term return. As we highlight the factors that influence their decision making about return and engagement in transnationalism, our findings suggest that the wide array of transnational activities by the highly skilled needs to be studied as an important complement to the focus on return migration.
Geographic mobility is increasingly perceived worldwide as a key to academic excellence, career advancement and upward social mobility. Drawing on long-term qualitative fieldwork data, this paper interrogates the impact of academic mobility in reconfiguring class and gender identities among students, early professionals and their families from Hong Kong and Indonesia who have studied or received further training in Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. This analysis problematises the crude ‘academic mobility → upward social mobility’ formula and considers international academic mobility as a contextual, dynamic and multi-directional process. Through this process social positions and identities of the moving individuals and families are negotiated in an on-going manner as migrants insert into, depart from and re-insert into the various social milieus where their mobility trajectories touch ground. Narratives of interviewees illustrate the complexity and contradictions in class and gender configurations as students move across borders. They show how these individuals are inserted in contrasting social positionings, and experience how a particular social class or gender position carries different connotations. The paper concludes with a few conceptual and methodological reflections.
In this study, the first author narrates his experiences of the challenges of integration into several Chinese universities as a PhD graduate after returning from Australia. His patterns of communication and psychological changes are examined in terms of identity construction and transformation. His insider position as a Chinese native and academic returnee enables him to see the realities of practice in average Chinese universities at close range, yet with the altered vision gained from his overseas experience. This study highlights the challenges for academic returnees in Chinese higher education institutions and may also have resonances for academic returnees in other countries. Wider questions about the assessment of English research writing and the attitudes to academic returnees in Chinese universities are raised, contributing to debate over the future development of Chinese higher education institutions in a globalizing world.
The opening of China’s economy has attracted an inflow of Taiwanese migrants, including student migration for higher education. Taiwanese migrants in China have created a ‘transnational social field,’ which is simultaneously an exceptional space of sovereignty and a liminal terrain of identity. Based on in-depth interviews with 61 Taiwanese students in China, this article looks into the paradoxes between nationalization and globalization at the intersection of state policy, migration trajectory, and identity politics. The Chinese government has offered Taiwanese citizens exceptional membership and privileged access to college admission, in order to uphold China’s claim of sovereignty over Taiwan and promote the agenda of reunification. Taiwanese students capitalize on such institutional privilege and cultural ties to facilitate their transnational mobility and flexible capital accumulation. They also develop different strategies to negotiate their ethnic or national identification: assimilating as Chinese, reasserting a Taiwanese identity, and claiming a cosmopolitan identity.
This article discusses the de/construction of liminal identities in relation to translocal patterns of work. Through a phenomenological analysis of three autobiographical narratives, it informs management and organization studies, discussing liminality and translocality as embedded and embodied phenomena experienced in relational, spatio-temporal, and inter-corporeal levels. In particular, the article proposes that a post-dichotomous conceptualization of place and non-place, self and other, and fixity and mobility unveils the complexities of studying identity, liminality, and translocality as interrelated phenomena. Liminal identities are explored as socio-spatial, temporary crystallizations of translocal bodily experiences, disrupted by differentially embodying displacements and emplacements across space–time. Finally, we suggest that translocal socio-spatial scales are inter-corporeal performances that challenge both material and immaterial boundaries. The article concludes with the contributions of this work to identity, liminality, and translocality studies and a discussion of future research directions.
Abstract Studies aimed at understanding different post-return experiences point at various factors that are involved. In this article, we show the importance of striving for a contextualized understanding of post-return experiences as different factors appear to be important in different cases. Our study sets out to seek the value of the theory of preparedness proposed by Cassarino and simultaneously contribute to further contextualization of this theory through a qualitative study conducted in Morocco. Drawing on 44 qualitative interviews with a diverse set of returned migrants we scrutinize how mechanisms related to intersections between factors commonly found to be important in the literature take shape to make different factors important in different cases. For example, we show how the ability to keep transnational contacts with the destination country after return adds to positive post-return experiences, but only for migrants with specific return motives. In doing so, this article contributes to theory specification and contextualization.
A key feature of contemporary globalization is the increasing mobility of high-skilled talent. While for many countries in the developing world the loss of such individuals represents a longstanding concern, countries such as China have now developed key policies to harness their overseas talent. The article examines the job-seeking experiences of a key group of high-skilled returnees, after taking advanced degrees in Australia, discussing the outcomes in terms of salaries and length of time to secure employment, as well as analysing their advantages and disadvantages relative to their domestic peers. On the basis of survey and interview data, the views of both returnees and employers are canvassed, as also issues of re-integration and Chinese networks and values.
The war for ‘global talents’ becomes increasingly fierce worldwide with the thriving of knowledge-based new economy. Many countries are implementing new initiatives to encourage their citizens trained overseas to return with their globalised work competencies. Although previous studies have identified various factors related to return migration, very few studies have focused on the return migration of academics, and more specifically, the role of the higher education institution (HEI) in the return migration process. Using both statistical analyses of micro-data and in-depth interviews, this study examines the HEI recruitment process through an extensive case study in a research university in China. We find that, for successful recruitment of overseas top talents, it is extremely important as to how university presents itself in the international stage of the global higher education markets. Meanwhile, we cannot underestimate the role of economic incentives. We also find that the role of networking is more subtle than what traditional migration theories would have predicted. Our findings provide important policy implications for practices regarding talent recruitment at the institutional level, particularly for those universities at the lower end of the global higher education hierarchy. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This study explores the most fundamental issue of identity politics in Taiwan, namely, the dimensionality of and the delicate relationship between ethnic identity and national identity. By applying latent class (LC) factor analysis to 12 items of the Taiwan’s Election and Democratization Study (TEDS) 2001 survey, we first confirm that Taiwanese/Chinese identity and national identity are two analytically different dimensions. We then employ LC cluster analysis to determine the number of latent classes in each of these two dimensions. We find that the so-called ‘objective’ measure of the ‘four major ethnic groups’ based on respondents’ fathers’ ethnicity does not correspond very well with either of the two dimensions of identity. Furthermore, the distribution of national identity among ethnic groups displays much greater variation than only a Taiwanese/Chinese identity does. More specifically, mainlanders show the highest degree of homogeneity in national identity, whereas native Taiwanese show substantial heterogeneity. Although our findings do not defy the common practice of using a fathers’ ethnicity as an ‘objective’ indicator of ethnicity, they do remind us that identity politics in Taiwan are multidimensional in nature and deserve more careful study.
Between 1978 and 2007, more than 1.21 million Chinese went abroad for study and research, of whom only about a quarter have returned. The Chinese government's policies of attracting first- rate overseas academics back have yielded mixed results at best. This article discusses why overseas Chinese academics hesitate to return at a time when China is in desperate need of talent to turn itself into an innovation-oriented society. Common reasons relate to low salaries, problems of education for children and jobs for spouses, and problems of separation if some family members still reside abroad. More important are institutional factors. Guanxi still matters. The opportunity costs in career development are too high. In social science research, there are still taboos. Rampant misconduct has also tainted the Chinese scientific community. The article concludes that unless the research culture becomes conducive to doing first-rate work and meritocracy is rewarded, China is unlikely to witness the return migration of first-rate academics.
The purpose of this article is to explore the cluster of experiences that participants in study abroad go through — both during their sojourn abroad and immediately upon return — and how these experiences enhance shifts in their individual priorities. I will discuss to what extent, and why, some study abroad participants bring their academic endeavors to the forefront of their interests when they return to their home colleges. Since the experiences of study abroad program participants are many, eye-opening, and quite complex, this article will also explore the intricate and multiple determinations of the changes in the participants. With the help of multiple regression and path analyses, I will lay out a model that charts those changes, their consequences, and mutual determinations.
The employment of translocality as a research perspective is currently gaining momentum. A growing number of scholars from different research traditions concerned with the dynamics of mobility, migration and socio-spatial interconnectedness have developed conceptual approaches to the term. They usually build on insights from transnationalism, while at the same time attempting to overcome some of the limitations of this long-established research perspective. As such, translocality is used to describe socio-spatial dynamics, processes of simultaneity and identity formation that transcend boundaries – including but also extending beyond – those of nation states. In this review we trace the emergence of the idea of translocality and summarise the characteristics associated with the term by different authors. We elucidate the underlying notions of mobility and place, and sketch out fields of research where the concept has been employed. On the basis of our findings, we conclude by proposing key areas where a translocal approach has the potential to generate fruitful insights.
In order to sustain its economic growth, China has been pursuing a number of policies aimed at recovering its expatriate brain power by encouraging scholars living abroad to return. While local government authorities compete to recruit returnees, the central Government has introduced various policies to facilitate repatriation and resettlement, including preferential treatment for housing and research, financial benefits (fellowships), better dissemination of information, etc. The author concludes that these efforts have not been in vain, but notes that few of those who have returned have given up. particularly successful careers abroad to do so.
In the light of rapid globalization processes, cosmopolitanism discourses espousing a culture of openness to difference have (re)gained currency in the scholarly literature. Notwithstanding some wariness concerning its inherent politics and elitist contours, geographers have drawn on the concept to frame studies of diversity and difference, particularly with regard to spaces of encounter conditioned by otherness, multiplicity, heterogeneity, and plurality. In applying the geographical imagination to grounding cosmopolitanism in place, three themes come into focus: cosmopolitanism in urban encounters; cosmopolitanism in relations of care; and cosmopolitanism from the margins.
This paper explores the subjectivities of neighbourhood identity and belonging. It considers how far, and in what ways, place identity and attachment are transmitted cross-generationally. Three broad themes have framed this research. First, the ways in which the formation and reproduction of neighbourhood identities have been influenced by geographical, political, contemporary and historical contexts. Second, and relatedly, the roles played by intersectional factors such as race and class. Third, the extent to which alternative neighbourhood identities challenge and contest ‘mainstream’ narratives that stigmatise and undermine disadvantaged inner-city communities. This paper draws on a case study area of ‘Liverpool 8’ (part of the wider Toxteth locale), a historically ethnically diverse inner-city area which attracted negative press coverage during the 1980s and 2011 riots. Drawing on a series of in-depth interviews with residents, the research reveals evidence of strong neighbourhood belonging and identity, shared and diffused across generations, based on subjective experiences, both positive (e.g. celebration of diversity, neighbourliness) and negative (e.g. racism, discrimination). To some extent, younger generation narratives reveal subtle changes that suggest a broadening of spatial horizons, beyond the residents’ immediate neighbourhood. However, at the same time, socio-economic and ethnic inequalities act to temper and stifle socio-spatial networks and experiences outside the immediate neighbourhood, for younger – as well as older – generations.
The ‘global race for talent’ has drawn immense attention from academics, policy-makers and the media. China is on both sides of the race. On the one hand, rapid economic growth has created the opportunity for many affluent and middle-class families to send their children abroad for higher education while stimulating intense internal migration for education and/or career opportunities. On the other hand, to affirm its (re-)emergence as an economic giant, China has begun recruiting talent from abroad, gradually forsaking its traditional role as a brain-drain country to become an exemplar of brain circulation. This paper elaborates an ‘intellectual migration’ conceptual framework that asserts both higher-education and highly skilled migration is a dynamic process that occurs along a spectrum where migration stages intersect with life transitions. Arguing that intellectual migration should be analysed as a continuum, we provide evidence from our own empirical work and the literature to ascertain its relevancy and applicability to China at this juncture and suggest a more integrative approach to analysing the framework.
This study examined the formation of residents’ support for sustainable tourism development based on the social exchange theory and bottom-up spillover theory. A self-administered survey along with a structural analysis was used. Our result revealed that overall quality of life satisfaction influenced support for sustainable tourism development, and that material life domains and non-material life domains were two important determinants of overall QoL. Perceived sociocultural impacts of tourism had a significant relationship with non-material life domains. Perceived economic impacts of tourism influenced both material and non-material life domains. Community attachment and residents’ perceived impacts of tourism were significantly associated.
While facing labour precarity of the increasingly competitive academia-industry, mobile academics encounter another set of challenges brought by the global shift away from permanent migration towards more temporary forms of migration since the 2000s. Yet, the occurrence and impact of ‘temporariness’ in academic migration, especially at the personal and individual level, are not well understood. Drawing on qualitative research with 40 early career Chinese academic returnees, this paper extends the literature on academic migration by examining how it intersects with the temporal dimensions of mobile scholars’ lives. The paper focuses on the state of ‘being temporary’ Chinese academic returnees experience both before and after their return. Particularly, it investigates how some returnees conduct temporal labour to mitigate the temporal precarity generated across their mobility process. It aims to bring the temporal and emotional dimension of migration to the fore, and demonstrate how institutional temporal discourses (e.g. migration regimes and policy) intimately affect individual migrant lives and subjectivities, including their life course trajectories, labour market opportunities and everyday forms of social belonging. In doing so, this paper develops a temporally-sensitive theoretical approach to further understand the impacts of mobilities, thus contributing to addressing the overwhelming spatial emphasis of migration studies.
Communities respond to unconventional gas in a variety of ways. In some communities, industry has held a social license, while in other areas, industrial development has been slowed, halted, or prevented by social resistance. Repeatedly, across multiple nations and communities, we have observed that social identities that either incorporate or eschew activism intersect with perceptions of this development's effect on place identity to either foster or discourage opposition. Particularly interesting are cases in which fracking is perceived to threaten local place identity, but where activism conflicts with social identity. To mobilise different sectors of the population, it often appears important for local residents to be perceived as ‘regular citizens’ and not as activists. We explore how intersection of social identities and place identity shaped the different ways in which communities in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United States have responded to unconventional gas development. Communities resisting development often see ‘activism’ as something that ‘outsiders’ do and that must be rejected as insufficiently objective and neutral. This view of activism and activists produces specific forms of resistance that differ from typical ‘activist’ actions, in which ‘knowledge’, ‘information’, neutrality, and objectivity are particularly important.
This section presents the third volume of Max Weber's fundamental work Economy and Society which has been translated into Russian for the first time. The third volume includes two works devoted to the sociology of law. The first, 'The Economy and Laws', discusses differences between sociological and juridical approaches to studies of social processes. It describes peculiarities of normative power arenas (orders) at different levels and demonstrates how they influence the economy. The second, 'Economy and Law' ('Sociology of Law'), reviews the evolution of law orders (primarily, the three "greatest systems of law" including Roman Law, Anglo-American Law, and European Continental Law) in the context of changes in the organization of economy and structures of dominancy. Law is considered an influential factor of the rationalization of social life which in turn is affected by a rationalized economy and social management. The Journal of Economic Sociology here publishes an excerpt from the chapter 'Law, Convention and Custom' in this third volume, which shows the role of the habitual in the formation of law; explains the importance of intuition and empathy for the emergence of new orders; and discusses the changeable borders between law, convention and custom. The translation is edited by Leonid Ionin and the chapter is published with the permission of HSE Publishing House. © 2018 National Research University Higher School of Economics. All rights reserved.
Whereas migration research has been heavily influenced by the individualization paradigm, studies on return migration have been more inspired by theories on attachment and belonging. It is common for this kind of research to assert that the main motivations for returning are social contacts and a homing desire. Although this article does not question the importance of such motivations for some, it does argue that return migration needs to be more problematized, not least by studying people who have decided not to return. Based on interviews with highly skilled Estonians, this article suggests that return decisions are influenced by three types of comparisons: social, temporal, and intra-subjective. The first two comparisons have been discussed to some degree in migration literature; however, a focus on intra-subjective comparisons – in which people compare different parts of their identity in order to decide on a potential return – has been scarce. This article suggests that, in line with the individualization of social relationships, but also with the introduction of a new EU mobility space, it is the latter type of comparison that is becoming increasingly widespread.
This book examines the way Chinese academics returning from the US re-establish their academic identities and professional practices at China’s research universities in the context of higher education internationalization in China. It goes beyond economic accounts of academic mobility based on the notions of brain drain, brain gain, and brain circulation. Instead, it uses a cultural approach to explore the everyday experiences of the returning scholars concerning the issues of their sense of identity, as well as their ways of connecting and bringing about changes in their work communities. It will appeal anyone interested in 1) globalization and academic mobility; 2) China’s talent policies and strategies; and 3) the internationalization of Chinese universities.
The past two decades have witnessed a sea change in migration scholarship. Most scholars now recognize that many contemporary migrants and their predecessors maintain various kinds of ties to their homelands at the same time that they are incorporated into the countries that receive them. Increasingly, social life takes place across borders, even as the political and cultural salience of nation-state boundaries remains strong. Transnational migration studies has emerged as an inherently interdisciplinary field, made up of scholars around the world, seeking to describe and analyze these dynamics and invent new methodological tools with which to do so. In this review, we offer a short history of theoretical developments, outlining the different ways in which scholars have defined and approached transnational migration. We then summarize what is known about migrant transnationalism in different arenas - economics, politics, the social, the cultural, and the religious. Finally, we discuss methodological implications for the study of international migration, present promising new scholarship, and highlight future research directions.
This article discusses the nature of Chinese students' transnational experiences and its impact on their identities within and beyond national and cultural boundaries. The discussion is located in the theoretical framework of transnationalism and explores in detail the ways in which students adapt, change and develop, both in the host country of their study and also on their return to work in their home countries. Empirical evidence in the article is drawn from the findings of three studies, led by the author, which have investigated the pedagogical, sociocultural and emotional challenges that Chinese students have encountered when studying at British universities, and the perceived impact of their overseas studies on their lives and careers in their home countries. The research findings suggest that there are distinctive patterns of challenges, struggles, adjustments, change and achievement over time – all of which are embedded in the processes of socialisation, enculturation and professionalisation. Such experiences are both transitional and transformational and, most profoundly, they necessitate identity change at and across different layers of boundaries. At the heart of this identity change is a constant, emotional search for a reflexive sense of self as an embodied individual, a member of a professional group and a member of an organisation.
With ongoing immigration from ‘all over the world’, European cities are realising that the local level is gaining importance as a setting for interethnic coexistence. In this article, we investigate the attachment of migrants and natives to their local context in three neighbourhoods (one better-off, two more deprived) in Vienna that differ in contextual, structural, and socio-economic characteristics. We ask how the place attachment of natives and migrants is related to weak and strong social ties. In all three neighbourhoods, we found a majority of residents reported high or medium levels of attachment proving that urban neighbourhoods are still important contexts for local residents. A closer look revealed differences across groups and research areas: The strongest place attachment is displayed by natives in the middle-class area of Laudongasse, with migrants being significantly less attached, but still more than migrants (and natives) in the two deprived settings. In social housing (Am Schöpfwerk), migrants are more attached than natives, whereas in Ludo-Hartmann-Platz, the difference is not significant. The first result is that obviously deprivation reduces individual place attachment. In contrast to previous studies we found that socio-demographic factors are not relevant, it is social contacts that are important in explaining local attachment. For natives and migrants alike, close ties in the neighbourhood raise local attachment. Small talks are relevant for migrants but not for natives. This is in line with previous studies emphasising the special relevance of weak ties for migrants in supporting the integration process in a new environment. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Building upon recent work on higher education mobility, this paper contends that social networks of friendship and kinship are critical determinants for students deciding to study overseas, not just, as has hitherto been suggested, a complementary factor. It uses original data collected through interviews and focus groups with thirty-eight higher education international students studying at three UK universities and argues that students who choose to study overseas do not operate within a vacuum but rather draw upon extended networks of individuals who have chosen to do so themselves or advocate studying abroad. While this encouragement may be of an explicit and unequivocal nature – telling students that they ought to study overseas – for the majority it is rather more implicit. The students interviewed invariably related that higher education overseas or mobility more generally was an accepted practice among their peers, thereby leading to a normalisation of the mobility process. The paper concludes that international students come to accept mobility as a taken for granted stage within the life course, and, whether intentionally or not, this is often the driving force behind their decision to study overseas.
High cost barriers and immigration policy restrictions prevent many low-capital migrants from realizing their destination preferences. However, interviews with 95 Filipino domestic workers in the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore reveal how these low-capital migrants can intentionally follow a stepwise international migration trajectory, working their way up a hierarchy of destination countries and accumulating sufficient migrant capital in the process so as to eventually gain legal entry into their preferred destinations, often in the West. Such a trajectory differs from more frequently studied migration patterns in its number of stages, duration, intentionality, hierarchical progression, and dynamic nature.
Return migration and migrant transnationalism are key phenomena in research on international migration. Here we examine how the two are connected. The article introduces a special section and draws partly upon this selection of papers and partly upon the broader literature. First, we argue that there is often a blurred boundary between mobility as a transnational practice, for instance in the form of return visits, and purportedly permanent or long-term return migration. Second, we examine the effects of transnationalism on return migration intentions and experiences. Third, we explore how migration trajectories, involving various forms of ‘return’ moves, create different forms of transnationalism. Examples include the ‘reverse transnational’ practices of returnees and the ‘residual transnationalism’ of migrants who have had an unsuccessful return experience and decided to settle permanently abroad. We end by considering how both return migration and transnationalism exist in the interplay between the personal and the social.
This paper explores how tour guides negotiate their identities in a multiple context of communication. The context is characterised as professional, commercialized and Chinese. The discussion is based on an investigation into the communication between Chinese tour guides and their international tourists. Findings indicate that to communicate effectively and appropriately in these contexts, tour guides have to actively construct meaning through a negotiated balance of content, identity and relationship.
This paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of the social psychology of migrants—both labor immigrants and refugees—by introducing the idea of ambivalence as a central feature of the migration experience. Building on recent work on ambivalence, particularly the contribution of Neil Smelser, we follow his lead in linking the idea of ambivalence to Albert Hirschman’s treatment of exit, loyalty, and voice. The data utilized in this study derive from a larger study of Iraqi immigrants in Helsinki and Rome. We make use of 48 open-ended interviews, half conducted in each city. Our focus is on the ambivalence of immigrants toward their country of origin. We find evidence that ambivalence is common and the reactions to it vary along the lines suggested by Hirschman.
The rapid growth of the Chinese economy during the last three decades since the period of “reform” and “opening” ushered in the interrelated processes of globalisation and urbanisation. Such processes have resulted in the emergence of a number of large urban centres drawing in capital, labour and multinational firms and characterised by their competing claims of becoming “global cities”. However, to date research on global cities has tended to focus on case studies from the “Global North” and limited attention has been given to unpacking the urban outcomes of globalisation in China. Concomitantly, where studies have been undertaken there has been a pre-occupation with the production of rankings, both specific and comprehensive in nature, to measure the “global-ness” of cities. The paper here seeks to examine the pathways to ‘global city’ formation in China and is grounded in empirical research attentive to the functionality of different cities and China’s uniqueness as the largest developing and transition economy. Utilising recent evidence the focus of the paper is to develop a typology of China’s global cities and to unpack their different political, economic and socio-cultural domestically and globally. The first part of the paper summarises recent developments in ‘global city’ theory and then provides a summary of work within the East Asian context. The paper then offers a conceptual framework for understanding global cities in the Chinese context drawing on literature from Chinese and international scholars. A preliminary typology is then discussed drawing on empirical data which suggests the emergence of Beijing as a ‘global capital city’, Hong Kong as a ‘global gateway city’ and Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou as ‘global industrialised cities’.
The article discusses the ambivalent experiences of Senegalese migrants within the 'transnational' spaces uniting Italy and Senegal. It is argued that to name transnational what was previously called 'ethnic group' does not necessarily prevent a reified conceptualisation of migratory phenomena. With the aim of providing an ethnographic representation which is respectful of the complexity and the multiplicity of trajectories characterising a transnational community, I describe practices as well as narratives from both the context of origin and the context of migration. I show that there are various ways of being transmigrant and that transnational migration, rather than being a homogeneous system, encompasses a wide range of different and situationally varied practices. I also try to convey the ambivalences and tensions shaping representations and self-representations. Contradictory yet coexisting narratives inform Senegalese self-representation and their different attitudes towards Italians: some more open to negotiation, others more inward and critical.
The HOPE VI programme in the US displaces tens of thousands of low-income households to disperse pockets of poverty and transform sites of `severely distressed' public housing into mixed-income housing. A complete evaluation of this programme's impacts on residents must examine the meanings and functions of these communities before they are dismantled. Therefore, this paper examines residents' lived experiences of place in one site before redevelopment. This socially well-functioning community allowed residents to lay down roots, form place attachments and create bonds of mutual support with neighbours, contrary to typical depictions of severely distressed housing. Implications for US public housing policy and parallels with the discourse on social housing and social inclusion in western Europe illuminate overarching trends in housing policy for the poor.
The transnationalism literature has focused on the transborder social networks that immigrants in the receiving country maintain with their sending countries and has not sufficiently examined how such transborder connections enable them to become simultaneously engaged in both nation-states. This paper argues that simultaneity is an important part of transnationalism that distinguishes it from long-distance nationalism. We therefore need to more extensively analyse how immigrants’ transborder involvement in their home country simultaneously affects their participation in the host country. I suggest four ways in which the dynamic relationship between home- and host-country engagement can be conceived. The first is a zero-sum relationship, where increased engagement in one country leads to decreased involvement in the other. The second involves the side-by-side co-existence of sending- and receiving-country engagement without one directly influencing the other. The third is a positively reinforcing relationship, where increased engagement in one country leads to increased involvement in the other. The final option is a negatively reinforcing relationship. I illustrate these four types of transnational simultaneity with examples of migrant socio-economic, political, cultural and identity transnationalism. Finally I discuss their implications for the long-term engagement of immigrants in both sending and receiving countries.
Theorized that place-identity is a cluster of positively and negatively valenced cognitions of physical settings. The substantive and valuative natures of these cognitions help to define who and of what value the individual is both to him/herself and in terms of how he/she thinks others view him/her. Three factors are seen as underlying the influence of physical settings on the development of place-identity in the individual: the physical settings of the home, school, and neighborhood. It is in the home, school, and neighborhood settings that the child learns some of his/her most significant social roles (e.g., sex, peer-group membership, ethnic group membership). (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This introduction explores reasons for the continuing debate on the subject of transnationalism and persistent scepticism about the significance of the topic. The basis for such disagreements has to do less with the actual existence of the phenomenon than with methodological shortcomings that led to its overestimation in the early literature and the conceptual failure to distinguish between cross-border activities conducted by major institutions and by private actors in civil society. I explore these various problems seeking to clarify the actual scope of the phenomenon of transnationalism and its novel character. Despite recent findings that point to limited numerical involvement of immigrant groups in transnational activities, the latter remain significant because of their prospective growth and their impact on both immigrant adaptation in receiving countries and the development prospects of sending nations and communities. The evidence presented in the following articles document in detail these various aspects and indicates the multiple forms adopted by this phenomenon among immigrant groups in Europe and the United States.
Abstract In this article we reconsider the meaning of return migration in a period of growing transnational practices. In its conventional use, return migration conveys the same sense of closure and completion as the immigration-assimilation narrative. But in a transnational era, movement is better described as continuous rather than completed. Focus groups held in Hong Kong with middle-class returnees from Canada reveal that migration is undertaken strategically at different stages of the life cycle. The return trip to Hong Kong typically occurs for economic reasons at the stage of early or mid career. A second move to Canada may occur later with teenage children for educational purposes, and migration at retirement is even more likely when the quality of life in Canada becomes a renewed priority. Strategic switching between an economic pole in Hong Kong and a quality-of-life pole in Canada identifies each of them to be separate stations within an extended but unified social field.