New Chinese Migrants In New Zealand

This book focuses on new immigrant families from the People’s Republic of China to New Zealand and investigates how these families have adapted to New Zealand immigration policy regime, which does not accommodate their cultural preference to live as multigenerational families easily. The book analyses a three-generation framework: First-generation adult immigrants, their children and older parents. It examines how migratory mobility and intergenerational dynamics configure migratory trajectories of individual family members and shape their family lives and sense of identity. The book sheds light on how different family generations pursue their own interests and goals while maintaining family unity and cohesiveness in contexts of increasing transnational mobility opportunities and constraints. It also investigates how familial ties, transnational connections and a sense of identity and belonging are defined and redefined during the process of transnational migration. This book can serve as a heuristic reference to and meaningful comparative parameter for studying transnational family migration in other contexts. As a significant theoretical contribution to the theory of transnational family formation in contexts where restrictive immigration policies result in members of multigenerational families living across different countries, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of sociology, anthropology, race and ethnic studies as well as Asian and Chinese studies.

The only book that comprehensively covers the fortunes of Chinese immigrants in New Zealand from the earliest encounters in the mid-1800s, to the present day (including transnationalism) offering valuable data and expert viewpoints for international study and comparision. A timely book that will strike chords with the Chinese communiities in Australia, Canada and the United states, because of the strikingly similar expieriences of members of those communities at the hands of colonial governments and sometimes xenophobic societies.

Wang attempts to close a gap in contemporary research by relating cosmopolitanism to migration, particularly in the Asian context. With a cosmopolitan gaze towards migration studies, she makes four key contributions to the ongoing scholarly discussion on how Chinese migrants integrate into and affect their host nation.

There are growing waves of ‘desirable’ migrants from Asia moving to New Zealand, a place experiencing increasing ethnic diversity, particularly in its largest metropolitan region Auckland. In purely demographic terms much of this diversity has been generated by policy shifts since the 1980s and the adoption of a comparatively liberal immigration policy based on personal merit without discrimination on the grounds of race, national or ethnic origin. Due to these changes, migrants from China, and Asia more broadly, have become increasingly significant in migration flows into New Zealand. This in turn makes New Zealand a valuable case study for understanding how Chinese migrants integrate into and affect their host nation. Wang attempts to close a gap in contemporary research by relating cosmopolitanism to migration, particularly in the Asian context. With a cosmopolitan gaze towards migration studies, she makes four key contributions to the ongoing scholarly discussion. Firstly, this is the first comprehensive study to use cosmopolitanism as a framework to study the lives of contemporary Chinese migrants, with implications for migration studies as a whole. It sheds light on the relationship between cosmopolitanism and migrant mobility, taking a new approach to examine the living paradigms of international migrants. Secondly, this book identifies the emergence and development of cosmopolitanism outside the domain of Western middle-class groups. The concept of ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ is utilised to break down the Eurocentric notion of cosmopolitanism, and to show the role played by Chinese rootedness during the process of becoming cosmopolitan and encountering diversity. Thirdly, the book advances and enriches the knowledge of studies in ‘everyday cosmopolitanism’, by focusing on ‘cosmopolitanism from below’, locating quotidian and ‘down-to-earth’ cosmopolitan engagements that are grounded in everyday migrant lives. Fourthly, it looks at the emotional dimension of migrants negotiating difference and engaging in cosmopolitanism, particularly the ways in which emotions undermine and promote the development of cosmopolitan sociability.

What role does diasporic Chinese media play in the process of Chinese migrants' adaptation to their new home country? With China's rise, to what extent has the expansion of its "soft power" swayed the changing identities of the Chinese overseas? A Virtual Chinatown provides a timely and original analysis to answer such questions. Using a media and communication studies approach to investigate the reciprocal relationship between Chinese-language media and the Chinese migrant community in New Zealand, Phoebe Li goes beyond conventional scholarship on the Chinese Diaspora as practised by social historians, anthropologists and demographers. Written in an accessible and reader-friendly manner, this book will also appeal to academics and students with interests in other transnational communities, alternative media, and minority politics.

The term ‘circulatory transnational migration’ best describes the unconventional migratory route of many contemporary Chinese migrants – that is an unfinished set of circulatory movements that these migrants engage in between the homeland and various host countries. ‘Return migration’, ‘step migration’ to a third destination and the ‘astronauting’ strategy are all included within this circulatory migration movement wherein ‘returning’ to the country of origin does not always mean to settle back to the homeland permanently; while ‘step migration’ also does not necessarily mean to re-migrate to a third destination country for a permanent purpose. Liu takes a longitudinal perspective to study Chinese migrants’ transnational movements and looks at their transnational migratory movements as a family matter and progressive and dynamic process, using New Zealand as a primary case study. She examines Chinese migrants’ initial motives for immigrating to New Zealand; the driving forces behind their adoption of a transnational lifestyle which includes leaving New Zealand to return to China, moving to a third country – typically Australia - or commuting across borders; family-related considerations; inter-generational dynamics in transnational migration; as well as their future movement intentions. Liu also discusses Chinese migrants’ conceptualisation of ‘home’, citizenship, identity, and sense of belonging to provide a deeper understanding of their transnational migratory experiences.

With the rapid economic development of China and the overall shift in the global political economy, there is now the emergence of new Chinese on the move. These new Chinese migrants and diasporas are pioneers in the establishment of multiple homes in new geographical locations, the development of new (global and hybrid) Chinese identities, and the creation of new (political, economic and social) inspirations through their mobile lives. This book identifies and examines new forms and paths of Chinese migration since the 1980s. It provides updated trends of migration movements of the Chinese, including their emergent geographies. With chapters highlighting the diversities and complexities of these new waves of Chinese migration, this volume offers novel insights to enrich our understanding of Asian mobility in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The book will be of interest to academics examining migration, mobility, diaspora, Chinese identity, overseas Chinese studies and Asian diaspora studies.