Relational citizenship: Examining Taiwanese membership development through immigrant framing in public discourses

Abstract

There are many daughters-in-law taken as wives by Taiwanese men from all over the world, and they have become a new ethnicity. After arriving to this new hometown, they must learn how to communicate in [local] languages and adjust to everyday customs. It is especially important for them to learn how to educate the next generation in this new environment and become a good daughter-in-law and a good mother. (Now News, 2013) 台灣民眾遠娶世界各國家來做媳婦的不少，成為新興的族群。她們到了這個新故鄉，必須 學到了與人溝通上的語言、生活習俗，尤其如何教養下一代，在不同環境中，要如何做個 好媳婦、好母親。

Communicating citizenship in China’s digital society

“…This orientation may not be only particular in the Chinese context (and to some extent it may share cultural interpretations of citizenship within the Western discourse), but it does reveal a communal and relational aspect of being in the public realm which has been heavily emphasized in the writings of Chinese political philosophers and thinkers, such as the Confucian celebration of "public service" (Goldman & Perry, 2002) and Han Feizi's promotion of the "public people" over "private protégés" in feudal China (Chen, 2004). Cheng's (2018) recent work on understanding citizenship through terms of relationships (e.g., mothers and sisters) in modern Taiwanese discourse also points to the communal and relational dimension of citizenship in Chinese societies. This contingency illustrates an important historical conjuncture in understanding ordinary people's interpretation and practice of citizenship in contemporary China, especially regarding the moral dimension of communicating citizenship.…”

“…The present study explores the idea of citizenship as a communicative construct in China's digital environment, with a particular focus on the cultural dimension of communicating what it means to be a citizen and what rights it entails for people in China participating in online commentary surrounding two social controversies 1 . Given the extensive research on citizenship in democratic societies from the Western sphere (Cheng, 2018;Nuyen, 2002), it is of great value to investigate how citizenship is communicated and interpreted in an ever-changing society like China -ruled by a single-party state and deeply influenced by Asian cultural traditions such as Confucianism and Buddhism (Chen & Starosta, 2003). The current study adopts Philipsen's speech codes theory (Philipsen, et al, 2005) to examine the historically situated and socially constructed cultural meanings and premises pertaining to communicating citizenship in Chinese online public discourses.…”