Description
Book SynopsisCo-publication with Zhejiang University Press
Worldwide selling rights excl. China
Stories and experiences of Chinese migrants
This collection of essays by Li Minghuan, an early new migrant-scholar herself, documents the extraordinary story of Chinese transnational migration. The book represents over two decades of untiring empirical field research, going where the migrants go - the Netherlands, France, Canada - and where they come from - Wenzhou in Zhejiang, Mingxi in Fujian - in order to observe, and to listen, with an unwaveringly sympathetic eye and ear, to what they, their families, their neighbours, their brokers, and their local officials have to say. Coupled with the historian's craft of painstaking archival research, these village and community case studies not only cover an astounding geographical orbit of sending and receiving areas, but also a broad diversity and range of migrant types and situations both historical and contemporary, from illegal and refugee migration, to official labor export, to the migration of students and professionals.
Trade ReviewAnyhow, there is no doubt that this book does convey the rich and immensely varied experiences of Chinese migrants and their families at all ends of the migration networks, and it sheds new light on the ongoing Chinese transnational migration studies. I would thus highly recommend it to both scholars and readers with a more general interest in Chinese migration and diaspora.
James K. Chin, Research School of Overseas Chinese, Jinan University, China, Journal of Chinese Overseas 10 (2014) 263-278
The strength of this book is also its weakness: the great range of topics covered. Some of these topics have received relatively little attention in the literature, such as the Chinese migration to Israel or the villages established for ethnic migrants from Indonesia. [...] Li Minghuan has done great service over almost a quarter of a century in pioneering different approaches to the topic of Chinese transnational migration.
Ronald Skeldon, University of Sussex, Pacific Affairs Volume 88, Issue 4 (December 2015).
Table of ContentsForeword
Introduction Field Research at Multiple Ends of Chinese Migration Networks
Part I Empirical Studies from Sites of Origin
1 "To Get Rich Quickly in Europe!" Reflections on the Motivations For Transnational Migration in Wenzhou
2 Qiaoxiang in Wenzhou Revisited: Understanding Village Loyalty in the Age of Globalization
3 Transforming Contingency into Meaning. An Emergent Qiaoxiang in South China
4 Making a Living at the Interface of Legality and Illegality: Chinese Migrant Workers in Israel
5 Playing Edge Ball: Transnational Migration Brokerage in China
6 Collective Symbols and Individual Options: Life on a State Farm for Returned Overseas Chinese after Decollectivization
Part Il Empirical Studies from Sites of Destination
7 Formalizing the Transnational Network: A Study on European-wide Chinese Voluntary Associations
8 Making a Living in an Affluent World: Chinese Immigrants in Europe
9 Living between Three Walls? The Peranakan Chinese in the Netherlands
10 A Group in Transition: Chinese Students and Scholars in the Netherlands
11 Everybody Acts Independently: A Study of the Refugee Determination Process in British Columbia, Canada
12 The Chinese in Europe: Population, Economy and Links with Qiaoxiang in the Early 21st-century
Part Ill Learning from Archives and Literature
13 Dezelfde he? "The Dutch Are the European Chinese" -Reflections
14 Understanding the Tandjoeng Cemetery Archives: Chinese Society in 19th-century Batavia
15 From "Sons of the Yellow Emperor" to "Children of Indonesian Soil" : Exploring 19th-century Chinese Society Based on the Batavia Kong Koan Archives
Concluding Remarks Myths of Creation and the Creation of Myths: Interrogating Chinese Diaspora
Afterword
References
Endnotes
Index
