Expatriating is patriotic? The discourse on 'new migrants' in the People's Republic of China and identity construction among recent migrants from the PRC

1 October 2001

journal article
research article
Published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

Vol. 27 (4) , 635-653
https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830120090421

Abstract

After 1978, the People's Republic of China (PRC) moved to (re-)legitimise, by both institutional and discursive means, allegiance to China in established overseas Chinese communities. In this article, I attempt to show how it has progressed to the next step: celebrating migration as a patriotic and modern act, and encouraging transnational practices among people who are in the process of leaving China. More specifically, I discuss how the state discursively constructs 'new migrant' culture; how it engages in imagining the transnational community of new migrants and operationalises imaginaries of the home province and the homeland. I also explore how identity construction among recent migrants is manipulated by elites that participate in this state-promoted imagining process.

Keywords

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