Overthrowing the first mountain: Chinese student-migrants and the geography of power

This article uses Mahler and Pessar’s (2001, 2006) model of “geography of power” to interrogate how the general dynamic of Chinese student migration generates a variety of experiences at the individual level. Each Chinese student-migrant embarks on their journey from a different position vis-à-vis the flows and interconnections of the international education market. Some of them set out to achieve concrete goals, while others are motivated by a more intangible mission to become cosmopolitan subjects. As they move around, their shifting position in the hierarchies of nationality, class, gender, and generation influences their decision-making and their experiences. These power systems function simultaneously on multiple geographical scales, exemplified by the contradictory ways gender operates in the family, education, work, and marriage. To further develop the connection this model makes between personal characteristics, cognitive processes, and various power systems, I draw attention to the politics of ordinary affects

Physical Education in Chinese schools: role models, repetition and winning. Special section on Sports : Role Models, Repetition, and Winning

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Cooperation and punishment

This chapter focuses on questions related to human cooperation, focussing in particular on punishment as a means of enforcing cooperation. We take child development processes as a means to investigate this, drawing on fieldwork material from China and Taiwan. As anthropologists would expect, we find that: (a) cooperation is not only a cultural phenomenon but also a historical and political one; (b) reciprocity is a key feature of human cooperation, but the manifestations of this in particular fieldsites are highly variable and sometimes surprising; and (c) cooperation in one domain of life tends to spill over into other domains of life. As noted, however, we go beyond standard anthropological accounts of cooperation by adding a set of questions regarding punishment and child development – questions that, in turn, may help bring the anthropological study of cooperation into closer dialogue with work being done by scholars in other disciplines on this important topic. The goal is to develop comparative questions about ethical life: ones anchored in species-level understandings of what it is to be human and to engage in human cooperation

Journey of the phoenix : Overseas study and women's changing position in China

This study combines anthropology with migration studies to examine the increase of familial investment in daughters education as part of a wider transformation of the social and moral landscape of China. The focus is on urban single-child families who take on the substantial financial burden of sending their child abroad to study. The research involved 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork in China, as well as interviews in Europe and two survey studies. Chinese families have traditionally invested in sons education and future, as the patrilineal and patriarchal kinship principles have vested sons with the main responsibility of taking care of the ageing parents. The gendered family roles have been visible in the demographics of the Chinese migration flows. While men have taken the active role of migrating abroad to work and to study, women have played the supporting roles, being the left-behind wives or following male family members abroad. This pattern has changed as overseas study has become a major part of Chinese migration. Between 1978 and 2013 a staggering 2.6 million Chinese students went abroad to study. During this time, the proportion of women increased fivefold, and they now constitute half of the student migrant population. Be it a son or a daughter, most urban parents now do everything they can to support the education of their only child. Yet gender simultaneously operates on multiple scales. While a generation of young women have been educated in an environment that fosters individual achievement and competition, they must eventually find their place in the marriage and job markets that are highly gendered. Women are directed to certain, less demanding, career paths, and excessive success can stand in a way of marriage. The current student migrants also belong to the first generation who must make the transition from being the centre of the family to being the sacrificing parent. In this role, both women and men are expected to put the child's well-being and the future before their personal interests. The difference is that a father s contribution is more in line with his upbringing as the only child, than the mother s. It is the mothers who are expected to use time and energy to nurture and to educate the child, while a father s main contribution is through his personal career success. These dynamics create a paradoxical situation where women as daughters are supported to succeed but women as wives and mothers are not. Both female and male student migrants draw from their cosmopolitan experiences and symbolic resources, and their access to wider marriage and job markets, when negotiating this difficult position. Through their individual journeys of migration, they are at the forefront of the current transformation of the Chinese symbolic markets.Tutkimus yhdistää antropologian ja siirtolaisuustutkimuksen näkökulmia tarkastellen kiinalaisten opiskeluperäistä siirtolaisuutta sekä kulttuurisia ja rakenteellisia tekijöitä naisten osuuden nopean kasvun taustalla. Tutkimus perustuu 17 kuukauden kenttätyöhön Kiinassa, haastatteluihin Euroopassa ja kahteen kyselytutkimukseen. Noudattaen patrilineaalisen sukulaisuusjärjestelmän periaatteita, kiinalaiset perheet ovat perinteisesti investoineet poikien koulutukseen, sillä pojilla on ollut päävastuu huolehtia ikääntyneistä vanhemmista. Kiinalaisten muuttovirtojen demografia on ollut linjassa näiden perheensisäisten sukupuoliroolien kanssa. Miehet ovat muuttaneet ulkomaille työn tai opintojen perässä, naisten huolehtiessa perheestä Kiinassa tai seuratessa miespuolista perheenjäsentä ulkomaille. Tähän on tullut muutos opiskeluperäisen siirtolaisuuden myötä, jonka osuus reformiajan muuttovirroista on kasvanut nopeasti. Vuosien 1978 ja 2013 välillä Kiinasta lähti 2,6 miljoonaa opiskelijaa ulkomaille. Naisten osuus on tänä aikana viisinkertaistunut ja noin puolet opiskelijasiirtolaisista on nyt naisia. Opiskelu ulkomailla on perheille usein valtava taloudellinen taakka, mutta yksilapsiset kaupunkilaisperheet haluavat taata lapselleen sukupuolesta riippumatta parhaat mahdolliset lähtökohdat menestykseen yhteiskunnassa, jota leimaavat kasvun ja mahdollisuuksien lisäksi kasvavat tuloerot. Sukupuoli kuitenkin toimii samanaikaisesti useilla tasoilla. Naisten menestystä rajoittavat sukupuolittuneet työmarkkinat joilla naisia ohjataan vähemmän vaativille urapoluille sekä pelko siitä, että he liiallisen menestyksen myötä vaarantavat mahdollisuutensa avioitua. Tämän hetken opiskelijasiirtolaiset kuuluvat myös ensimmäiseen ainoiden lasten sukupolveen, jolla on siten edessään siirtymä perheen keskipisteestä uhrautuvaksi vanhemmaksi. Tämä merkitsee eri asioita miehille ja naisille. Niin pojat kuin tyttäretkin on kasvatettu ympäristössä joka painottaa yksilön menestystä ja itsensä kehittämistä, mutta kun hyvän isän rooli määritetään henkilökohtaisen menestyksen kautta, on "liika" individualistinen kunnianhimo ja menestys ristiriidassa hyvän äitiyden kanssa. Tästä perheroolien asetelmasta seuraa paradoxi jossa naisten menestystä tyttärinä tuetaan, mutta heidän roolinsa vaimoina ja äiteinä toimivat sitä vastaan. Sekä nais- että miespuoliset opiskelijasiirtolaiset ovat avainroolissa Kiinan moraalisen ja kulttuurisen maiseman muutoksessa, ja he hyödyntävät kansainvälistä kokemustaan ja resurssejaan neuvotellessaan oman elämänsä konflikteja

Chinese student migration, gender and family

Chinese Student Migration, Gender and Family is a study of the sons and daughters of Chinese single-child families who go abroad to study and in particular explores the increase of familial investment in daughters' education within the wider socio-moral transformation of China. The relationships of support in the family are renegotiated, and lines of generational and gendered power are changing. While this generation of young women have been raised in an environment that fosters individual achievement and competition, they must eventually find their place in the marriage and job markets that are highly gendered. Women are directed towards less demanding career paths and are wary of becoming 'too successful' to marry. Both female and male student migrants draw from their cosmopolitan experiences and resources when negotiating these tensions. Through their individual journeys of migration, they are at the forefront of the current transformation of the Chinese symbolic markets

Overthrowing the First Mountain: Chinese Student-Migrants and the Geography of Power

This article uses Mahler and Pessar’s (2001, 2006) model of “geography of power” to interrogate how the general dynamic of Chinese student migration generates a variety of experiences at the individual level. Each Chinese student-migrant embarks on their journey from a different position vis-à-vis the flows and interconnections of the international education market. Some of them set out to achieve concrete goals, while others are motivated by a more intangible mission to become cosmopolitan subjects. As they move around, their shifting position in the hierarchies of nationality, class, gender, and generation influences their decision-making and their experiences. These power systems function simultaneously on multiple geographical scales, exemplified by the contradictory ways gender operates in the family, education, work, and marriage. To further develop the connection this model makes between personal characteristics, cognitive processes, and various power systems, I draw attention to the politics of ordinary affects

Overthrowing the First Mountain: Chinese Student-Migrants and the Geography of Power

This article uses Mahler and Pessar’s (2001, 2006) model of “geography of power” to interrogate how the general dynamic of Chinese student migration generates a variety of experiences at the individual level. Each Chinese student-migrant embarks on their journey from a different position vis-à-vis the flows and interconnections of the international education market. Some of them set out to achieve concrete goals, while others are motivated by a more intangible mission to become cosmopolitan subjects. As they move around, their shifting position in the hierarchies of nationality, class, gender, and generation influences their decision-making and their experiences. These power systems function simultaneously on multiple geographical scales, exemplified by the contradictory ways gender operates in the family, education, work, and marriage. To further develop the connection this model makes between personal characteristics, cognitive processes, and various power systems, I draw attention to the politics of ordinary affects