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6 - The “Floating Population” and “New Migrants,” 1980s to the Present

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2020

Steven B. Miles
Affiliation:
Washington University, St Louis
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Summary

Chapter 6 surveys new waves of internal and external migration in the post-Mao era, arguing that they are linked phenomena. The chapter demonstrates that the larger phenomenon, the “floating population” of rural migrants in the cities of eastern, coastal China, is related to the phenomenon of “new migrants” targeting destinations beyond the borders of China. The chapter describes two important examples. The first is the simultaneous migration from some specific communities in the Wenzhou area of southern Zhejiang to Beijing and of migration from other specific communities in Wenzhou to such places as Prato, Italy. The second example consists of rural communities near the city of Wenzhou that both receive “internal” migrants from western China and send “external” migrants to such places as New York City. The chapter demonstrates the continued importance of kinship and native-place networks for the laborers and small entrepreneurs who made up the “floating population” and the “new migrants.” The chapter explores the stances and roles of various levels of government within China toward migrants. It concludes with a survey of family practices, including the reemergence of split families and the newer trends of family migration.

Type
Chapter
Information
Chinese Diasporas
A Social History of Global Migration
, pp. 196 - 227
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

For Further Exploration

Chang, Wen-Chin. Beyond Borders: Stories of Yunnanese Chinese Migrants of Burma. Cornell University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Choi, Susanne Y. P. and Peng, Yinni. Masculine Compromise: Migration, Family, and Gender in China. University of California Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chu, Julie Y. Cosmologies of Credit: Transnational Mobility and the Politics of Destination in China. Duke University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Johanson, Graeme, Smyth, Russell, and French, Rebecca, eds. Living Outside the Walls: The Chinese in Prato. Cambridge Scholars Pub., 2009.Google Scholar
Park, Yoon Jung, and Chen, Anna Ying. “Recent Chinese Migrants in Small Towns of Post-Apartheid South AfricaRevue Européenne des Migrations Internlationales 25.1 (2009): 2544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pieke, Frank N., Nyíri, Pál, Thunø, Mette, and Ceccagno, Antonella. Transnational Chinese: Fujianese Migrants in Europe. Stanford University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Sociology of Religion. Special issue. Conversion to Christianity among the Chinese. 67.2 (Summer 2006).Google Scholar
Xiang, Biao. “The Would-Be Migrant: Post-Socialist Primitive Accumulation, Potential Transnational Mobility, and the Displacement of the Present in Northeast China,TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia, 2.2 (July 2014): 183199.Google Scholar
Zhang, Li. Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks within China’s Floating Population. Stanford University Press, 2001.Google Scholar

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