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Introduction: Framing Chinese Migration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2020

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

The introduction surveys the main conceptual approaches that scholars take to study Chinese migration: diaspora, overseas Chinese (and Chinese overseas), ethnic studies, and Sinophone studies. It then describes common explanations for migration, including push and pull factors, migrant networks, and cultures of migration, in the process showing that very particular diasporic trajectories from specific emigrant communities in China to specific destinations both within and outside China constitute “the Chinese diaspora.” Finally, the introduction makes a case for considering internal and external Chinese migration as linked phenomena, and argues that migration was usually part of a broader family strategy for socioeconomic maintenance.

Keywords

Chinese diasporaoverseas Chinesemigrationethnic studiesSinophonepush factorspull factors
Type
Chapter
Information
Chinese Diasporas
A Social History of Global Migration
 , pp. 1 - 19
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

For Further Exploration

Brubaker, Rogers. “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28.1 (January 2005): 1–19.Google Scholar
Chan, Shelly. “The Case for Diaspora: A Temporal Approach to the Chinese Experience.” Journal of Asian Studies 74.1 (February 2015): 107–128.Google Scholar
Cohen, Robin. “Diasporas, the Nation-State, and Globalisation.” In Gungwu, Wang, ed., Global History and Migrations (Westview Press, 1997), 117–143.Google Scholar
Hu-DeHart, Evelyn, ed. Across the Pacific: Asian Americans and Globalization. Temple University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Philip A. Chinese among Others: Emigration in Modern Times. Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.Google Scholar
McKeown, Adam. Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936. The University of Chicago Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Pan, Lynn, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas. Harvard University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Shih, Shu-mei. “Against Diaspora: The Sinophone as Places of Cultural Production.” In Shih, Shu-mei, Tsai, Chien-hsin, and Bernards, Brian, eds., Sinophone Studies: A Critical Reader (Columbia University Press, 2013), 25–42.Google Scholar
Wang, Gungwu. “Sojourning: The Chinese Experience in Southeast Asia.” In Reid, Anthony, ed., Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese (University of Hawai’i Press, 1996), 1–15.Google Scholar

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