1st Edition

New Chinese Immigrants in New Zealand Floating families?

By Liangni Sally Liu, Guanyu Jason Ran Copyright 2022
    146 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    146 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book focuses on new immigrant families from the People’s Republic of China to New Zealand and investigates how these families have adapted to New Zealand immigration policy regime, which does not accommodate their cultural preference to live as multigenerational families easily. The book analyses a three-generation framework: First-generation adult immigrants, their children and older parents. It examines how migratory mobility and intergenerational dynamics configure migratory trajectories of individual family members and shape their family lives and sense of identity.

    The book sheds light on how different family generations pursue their own interests and goals while maintaining family unity and cohesiveness in contexts of increasing transnational mobility opportunities and constraints. It also investigates how familial ties, transnational connections and a sense of identity and belonging are defined and redefined during the process of transnational migration. This book can serve as a heuristic reference to and meaningful comparative parameter for studying transnational family migration in other contexts.

    As a significant theoretical contribution to the theory of transnational family formation in contexts where restrictive immigration policies result in members of multigenerational families living across different countries, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of sociology, anthropology, race and ethnic studies as well as Asian and Chinese studies.

    1. Introduction: New Chinese immigrant families from the People’s Republic of China to New Zealand – Approaching the topic 2. Re-grounding transnational migrant families in theories 3. From inclusion to exclusion: Family sponsorship and older parent reunification immigration under New Zealand’s neoliberal Immigration regime 4. "Forced" transnational migration: From a multigenerational familial perspective 5. Seasonal parents/grandparents: Transnational care circulation in new Chinese immigrant families 6. Reverse remittance: Challenging the traditional morality and power relation 7. Conclusion: The making of floating families in transnational social space

    Biography

    Liangni Sally Liu is a Senior Lecturer (tenured) in the School of Humanities, Media, and Creative Communication, Massey University, New Zealand.

    Guanyu Jason Ran is a Lecturer (tenured) in the Centre for Health and Social Practice, Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), New Zealand.