Transnationalism, Gender, and Civic Participation: Canadian Case Studies of Hong Kong Immigrants

Abstract

Emigration to another country is no longer a one-way passage. Recent research recognizes the complexity of international migration, under the rapidly expanding rubric of transnationalism, not as a single event but as embarking upon a way of life that places, and re-places, individuals and families within a new spatiality, stretching human relations across great distances. In the process, transnational migrants disrupt many taken-for-granted notions about immigrant settlement, renegotiating identities and citizenship practices.Our research is part of a large and ongoing project designed to understand how the concept of citizenship has changed for one of the largest groups of transnational migrants, people who moved from Hong Kong to Canada during the 1980s and 1990s. Based on intense conversations among migrants in focus-group sessions, as well as on extensive background information derived from questionnaires, we have explored the disruptions and connections that occur both in the regularities of everyday life and in the ideas and assumptions according to which everyday life is enacted.In this paper, we explore the concept of civic participation, asking how patterns of participation have changed through the course of migration and how participation

The China Challenge : Sino-Canadian Relations in the 21st Century

“…Over the past twenty years we have observed the burgeoning of the literature on Chinese "astronaut" families and "parachute" children, demonstrating how this transnational family form aff ects family relationships and individual members in both positive and negative ways (see Alaggia, Chau, and Tsang 2001, Aye and Guerin 2001, Gardner 2006, Ho 1999, Irving, Benjamin, and Tsang 2000, Lam 1994, Landolt and Da 2005, Man 1995a, McKeown 2000, Ong 1992, Preston, Kobayashi, and Man 2006, Preston, Kobayashi, and Siemiatycki 2006, Pribilsky 2004, Salaff , Shik, and Greve 2008, Siemiatycki and Preston 2007, Skeldon 1994 Tsang et al 2003, Waters 2002, Wong and Ho 2006, and Zhou 1998. However, more recently, the Chinese transnational family has shifted to a pattern in which working-age immigrants leave aging parents in China and also leave, or send back, their young children (see Da 2003, Liu 2008, and Man 2002.…”

International students with dependent children: the reproduction of gender norms

“…Similarly, with regard to educational migration, scholars have shown how the migratory decisions of women often focus on the interests of other family members. Indeed, in their research on women's migration from Hong Kong to Canada, Preston, Kobayashi, and Man (2006) argue that a highly normative view of the family was often a primary driving force:…”

Using courts to build states: The competing spaces of citizenship in transitional justice programmes

“…For example, Painter and Philo (1995) argue that it is through the demarcation of 'insiders' and 'outsiders' that liberal citizenship asserts its right to rule (see also Isin, 2002;Isin & Turner, 2007). One of the key messages of this work has been that forms of exclusion take many forms, from the securitisation of borders and tightening of immigration controls (Leitner & Strunk, 2014;Sparke, 2006), to socially and culturally inscribed mechanisms of exclusion based on gender (Goldring, 2001), class (Pykett, 2009), sexuality (Binnie & Valentine, 1999;Hubbard, 2013), age (Jeffrey, 2010), disability (Valentine & Skelton, 2007), race (Kofman, 1995) or intersections of these lines of identity (Preston, Kobayashi, & Man, 2006). The co-presence of so many strands of potential exclusion has led scholars to rely upon a distinction between de jure and de facto citizenship to highlight the distinction between the conferment of citizenship rights and the possibility of practicing or accessing such rights (see, for example, Valentine & Skelton, 2007).…”