The dark shadow of flexible citizenship: The social costs of translocalism and transnationalism. An anthropological case of chinese educational migration

Abstract

Acquiring flexible citizenship through education of transnational immigrants is an important way to realize class transition and obtain a better life. However, when immigrants cross space and social class, they generally also cross the cultural fields, which brings about the problems of self-identity. Existing studies on the identity and adaptation of Chinese educational immigrants mainly focus on middle-class groups, and there are few case discussions on poor groups. This study used ethnographic methods to trace the personal life histories of students from a high school of charity nature in Guangdong province who had immigrated to Europe. The study found that the poverty alleviation attempts of private charitable education supported by entrepreneurs provided students in poor areas with the opportunity to flow to the developed eastern areas before university. Due to the precise and sustainable input of educational resources and capacity building, the students have completed their personal life and labour production through two cross-local education migrations at the high school and university stages. Some also immigrated across the border for the third time, obtained "flexible citizenship", and realized class transition. However, compared with students from middle-class and ordinary families with less income, their identity and adjustment problems appear to be more serious. Because they left their native families to live alone in the early years, and then continued to migrate across cultures, they had significant individual psychological problems such as alienation, loneliness, integration difficulties, and identity suspension.