Suchergebnisse

Scholars and the Hong Kong government are concerned about the social, economic, and cultural integration of new mainland Chinese immigrants (NMCIs) into local society. Research on NMCIs' integration difficulties in Hong Kong has largely focused on one-way permit-holder migrants from China — who are less skilled and face discrimination and problems with integration based on differences in human capital — while overlooking other NMCI groups, such as mainland skilled professionals (MSPs) who may have different social integration experiences and receive different treatment from locals. Drawing on interviews with 48 MSPs and local Hong Kongers, this article investigates three questions: (1) What do interactions between MSPs and locals look like in the workplace and other social settings? (2) Are specific stereotypes of the other group changed or reproduced through boundary-making/unmaking processes, and if so, how? (3) What kind of integration are MSPs pursuing, do they face barriers to their integration? If so, how do they react to the barriers? The findings contribute to international migration literature by highlighting that, with the decreasing need for migrants to integrate into the host society, the high socio-economic status of skilled migrants does not weaken their boundaries with locals but instead reinforces them. Socio-economic status, along with language, political/ethnic identity, and cultural differences, thus divides highly skilled migrants from mainland Chinese workers and local Hong Kongers.

Abstract
Racialized and politicized discourses on individuals and countries have accompanied the emergence and spread of COVID-19. Adopting critical discourse analysis (CDA) and investigating the WHO's news releases, press conferences and the Taiwanese government's formal responses, this article examines three discursive events involving the deconstruction of racialized discourses during the pandemic by the WHO, the WHO's Director-General and Taiwan. Specifically, I focus on the following: the WHO's calls on the international community to cease using the term 'China virus'; Dr Ghebreyesus' calls on Taiwan to cease leveling racist insults against the Black community; and the Taiwanese government's refutation of racist allegations by deconstructing racialized meanings and highlighting its marginal status in the global health system due to international politics. The findings demonstrate the different ways each subject framed moral and immoral practice, highlighted or downplayed racialized discourse, and applied moral vs immoral distinction to manipulate and reinforce the audience's thoughts. This article contributes to the field of international relations and its connection with racism by showing how racial injustices 'travel' between places and are negotiated and re-politicized in the global health sphere.

The literature on spatial-temporal barriers shows that temporary migrant workers are vulnerable to exploitation and has concentrated on how they utilize new media to address underpayment and exploitation. These studies, however, have left unexplored the agency, temporality, and spatial considerations that underpin why workers prefer to activate "informal" mechanisms of complaint rather than accessing "formal" channels of redress, such as the Fair Work Ombudsman or labor unions. Using Working Holiday Makers in Australia as an example, this article focuses on digital togetherness generated through new media. I argue that digital interactions on new media platforms not only change the spatial-temporal limit of temporary migrant workers, but also create digital togetherness and connect workers with different imagined others (customers, arriving migrant workers, and workers who are facing exploitation). This connection can become an everyday resistance strategy, a remedy to space–time limits, and potentially challenge asymmetrical power relations between workers and employers.

The impact temporary visa status has on the lives of migrants and their experience of time has been widely discussed. Fewer studies, however, focus discussion on the competing interpretations of the value of Working Holiday Makers' (WHMs) time and the complexities of disruption and (un)certainties: more specifically the contrast between the value the Australian government places on time spent doing agricultural work in rural areas to become eligible for a second visa, and how this time is perceived by WHMs. This article seeks to fill this gap by comparing data drawn from the government's rhetoric and interviews with Taiwanese WHMs who had worked in regional areas of Australia for three months. I argue that the government selectively highlights to prospective WHMs the value of cultural exchange and tourism (life-value) while downplaying the labor value (money-value) to WHMs' time. Furthermore, the government and WHMs are not always talking about the same 'time units' (working time and holiday time) when applying these values. This article demonstrates that WHMs are conscious of how their time is spent and perceive the three months of specified work as being 'suspended', 'immobile', and 'disrupted', which undermines their life-values and migration flow in Australia.

This essay adopts three accounts (sociological, neoliberal, and cybernetic) of "the social" to get a clearer picture of why there is a barrier faced by the government when implementing contact tracing mobile applications. In Hong Kong's context, the paradox involves declining trust of the government's protection of data privacy and growing concern about data surveillance since the 2019 social unrest I argue that exploring the idea of sociality is valuable in that it re-reconfigures the datafication of pandemic control by revealing different sets of social relations, particularly the asymmetrical power relation between the government and its people. The refusal to download or use the mobile app also shows that the public has a faith in human agency and human resistance in data-saturated cities.

AbstractResearch on race and ethnicity has focused on conditions under which solidarity will be developed to consolidate collective benefits. For example, facing racial discrimination can bring large‐scale affiliations (e.g., people of color, Latinos, or Asians) to fight against racial injustice. Focusing on the negotiation and struggle between ethnicity and nationalism among Taiwanese migrants in Australia—a politicizing context associated with a prior definition of Chinese category, despite inherent differences within it, this article shows the complexity of ethnicity when ethnic identity/solidarity intersects with nationalism and racial discrimination. I argue that Taiwanese migrants attach specific meanings to the ethnic (Chinese) category and constantly connect to and shift its boundaries in different contexts. Meanwhile, they also make a distinction between racial discrimination from white Australians and political hostility from PRC‐Chinese. This article proposes a procedural and contextual understanding of ethnic identity, solidarity, nationalism, and boundary making/unmaking within the Chinese category as it is enacted in Taiwanese migrants' everyday lives. It also examines situational variability in the salience of ethnic identifications, racialization of the ethnic category, and people's interpretation of ethnic and national identity when facing racial discrimination.

Immigrants of the 1.5-generation (1.5-ers) differ from first- and second-generation immigrants because they are generally better immersed in the culture of the host society than the first generation; yet, compared to the second generation, they often have to renegotiate their identities in relation to parents, colleagues at work, and people in the host society during the processes of migration. Drawing on interview data from Taiwanese 1.5-ers in Australia, this article takes a further step and points out that in addition to the identity struggle between home and host country, Taiwanese 1.5-ers also identify as ethnic Chinese (Huaren) and constantly negotiate between these three identities (Huaren, Taiwanese, and Australian). This article argues that identity negotiation and hybridization is in nature a re-politicization process in which respondents are fully aware of the political meanings and power disparities of each identity. It is also a process whereby Taiwanese 1.5-ers mobilize, downplay, and hybridize specific identities based on time and context.

Racial microaggressions appear in different forms and affect racial and ethnic groups through everyday practices. We know little, however, about how racial microaggressions are perceived and operate in the context of institutionalized racism. In an immigration context, the structural mechanisms that influence migrant workers' interpretations of racial microaggressions remain understudied. This article examines job-search processes, self-perceptions of foreign-ness, group interactions, and work experiences of Chinese migrant workers in Australia. I argue that the intersection of foreign-ness, human capital, and migrant status reflects structural inequality in the field of overseas employment, which involves an ideological system that reminds migrant workers of their differences/otherness when racial microaggressions happen. The intersection also influences how migrant workers interpret and react to such microaggressions. Meanwhile, workplace relations and interaction patterns ease tensions between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, yet persistent racial stereotypes and unequal race relations are maintained in everyday life.

Migration studies have investigated the complex relationship between transnational ties and integration among long-term immigrants. However, discussions about temporary migrant motives for maintaining transnational ties remain under-explored. Focusing on how Chinese Working Holiday Makers (WHMs) see integration and the 'convertibility' of temporary experiences in Australia, this article highlights that temporary migrants are not just concerned with achieving integration in the present but also better chances in the future. Such concerns are oriented toward both receiving and home countries. To be specific, WHMs consciously maintain transnational ties to sustain their integration processes or in the event of a return home. Meanwhile, they try to stay in their host countries in order to allay the stigmas attached to them and to address other cultural concerns (such as saving 'face'). Because they may return to their home countries, they accumulate socio-cultural capital (e.g., English proficiency and overseas experience) while in Australia that they hope to employ in the future.

This dissertation examines the production and reception of pan-ethnic identities and group relations of three Chinese migrant groups (PRC-Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kongese) in Australia. In this dissertation I answer the questions why some people identify themselves as "Hua-Ren" (pan-Chinese or people with Chinese backgrounds) in some contexts, but claim they are "not Hua-Ren" in other contexts, as well as why intergroup competition/discrimination (e.g., between Chinese and white Australians) does not contribute to a broader pan-ethnic identity (like Asian-American movement in the United States). When speaking of "Chinese" or "Hua-Ren," there seems to be little consensus. In Australia, the ambiguity of the Chinese status not only leads to complicated situations with political and cultural tensions among people from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, it also influences the race relations between Chinese and Australians. However, few studies have systematically examined the complex differences between national (PRC-Chinese/Taiwanese/Hong Kongese) and pan-ethnic (Hua-Ren) identities. Nor have studies discussed whether, how, and to what degree national and pan-ethnic identities become stronger or weaker in different social settings (job-finding, workplace, community, and social life), nor how they shape and transform national identities and group relations among PRC-Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kongese. In other words, this dissertation explores differences in the interpretation of Hua-Ren identity within shifting contexts. I argue that pan-ethnicity is neither shaped voluntarily nor imposed by the mainstream society. Instead, it is a matter of what people subjectively interpret or believe about differences or not within shifting contexts. Pan-ethnic identity can thus become a tool of exploitation and intensification of ethnic stereotype in the cash-in-hand labor market; a strategy of managing differences and making/unmaking group boundary in the workplace; a process through which national identity is shifted to pan-ethnic identity (and vice versa) in various ethnic networks and community organizations; and a collectivity whether people adopt or reject in their everyday interactions with a non-Chinese group. In sum, this dissertation theorizes the formation and block of overseas Chinese identity, as well as what conditions favoring national or pan-ethnic identity.