James Farrers acute portrait and elegy of colonialism and cosmopolitanism in Shanghais expat community is a model of how to mobilise personalised narratives and everyday detailing to key into profound shifts in international relations: in this case, the balance of power between an ascendant China and the West written into these residents lives and experiences. A vital contribution to the ethnography of global cities and transnational urbanism.
Adrian Favell, Chair in Sociology and Social Theory, University of Leeds; Author of Eurostars and Eurocities
Once a nation eager to join the world system, China is now a major power that reshapes the global order. James Farrer reveals vividly how this historic shift is experienced on the ground by tracing the changing positioning of Western expatriates in Shanghai since the 1990s. Weaving structural analysis into intimate ethnography, the book is an exemplar of multi-disciplinary studies on migration, cities, and global change.
Biao Xiang, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford
An essential read for scholars of migration intrigued by global cities, transnational urbanism, integration, and a changing China. Farrer draws on extended ethnographic immersion to produce a deep and convincing analysis of the multiple social fields community, employment, education, sexuality through which expatriate migrants navigate integration and belonging in Shanghai.
Dr. Katie Walsh, Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex; Author of Transnational geographies of the heart: intimate subjectivities in a globalising city (2018, Wiley)
The New Shanghailanders is a carefully balanced, perceptive account of the social life of Western expatriates in Shanghai. By attending to the relational construction of transnational social, economic, cultural and sexual fields, Farrer shows how expat bubbles develop into Sinocentric cosmopolitan canopies. This is a welcome addition to the emerging scholarship on immigrant incorporation and adaptation in Asia.
Prof. Brenda Yeoh, Raffles Professor of Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Research Leader of the Asian Migration Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, NUS
International Migrants in Chinas Global City
Long a source of migrants, China has now become a migrant destination. In 2016, government sources reported that nearly 900,000 foreigners were working in China, though international migrants remain a tiny presence at the national level. Shanghai is Chinas most globalized city and has attracted a full quarter of Mainland Chinas foreign resident population.
This book analyzes the development of Shanghais expatriate communities, from their role in the opening up of Shanghai to foreign investment in the early 1980s through to the explosive growth after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2000. Based on over 400 interviews and 20 years of ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai, it argues that international migrants play an important qualitative role in urban life. It explains the lifestyles of Shanghais skilled migrants; their positions in economic, social, sexual, and cultural fields; their strategies for integration into Chinese society; their contributions to a cosmopolitan urban geography; and their changing symbolic and social significance for Shanghai as a global city. In so doing, it seeks to deal with the following questions: how have a generation of migrants made Shanghai into a cosmopolitan hometown, what role have they played in making Shanghai a global city, and how do foreign residents now fit into the nationalistic narrative of the China Dream?
Addressing a gap in the market of critical expatriate studies through its focus on China, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of international migration, skilled migration, expatriates, urban studies, urban sociology, sexuality and gender studies, international education, and China studies.
James Farrer is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Graduate Program in Global Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. His recent publications include Globalization and Asian Cuisines: Transnational Networks and Contact Zones (2015).
Routledge Series on Asian Migration
Series Editors: Yuk Wah Chan (City University of Hong Kong), Jonathan H. X. Lee (San Francisco State University, US) and Nicola Piper (The University of Sydney, Australia)
Editorial Board: Steven J. Gold (Michigan State University, US), David Haines (George Mason University, US), Pei-Chia Lan (National Taiwan University), Nana Oishi (University of Melbourne, Australia), Willem van Schendel (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Biao Xiang (University of Oxford, UK), Brenda Yeoh (National University of Singapore)
1 Racism and Resistance among the Filipino Diaspora
Kristine Aquino
2 New Chinese Migrations
Mobility, Home, and Inspirations
Edited by Yuk Wah Chan and Sin Yee Koh
3 International Migrants in Chinas Global City
The New Shanghailanders
James Farrer
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2019 James Farrer
The right of James Farrer to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Farrer, James (James C.), author.
Title: International migrants in Chinas global city: the new Shanghailanders / James Farrer.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. |
Series: Routledge series on Asian migration; 3 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018047074| ISBN 9780815382638 (hbk) | ISBN 9781351207959 (ebk) | ISBN 9781351207935 (epub) | ISBN 9781351207928 (mobipocket encrypted)
Subjects: LCSH: Shanghai (China)Emigration and immigrationSocial aspects. | Shanghai (China)Emigration and immigrationEconomic aspects. | ImmigrantsChinaShanghaiSocial conditions. | AliensChinaShanghaiSocial conditions. | Foreign workersChinaShanghaiSocial conditions.
Classification: LCC JV8709.Z6 S534 2019 | DDC 305.9/069120951132dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018047074
ISBN: 978-0-815-38263-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-20795-9 (ebk)
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