This article considers the disjunctures that exist between the temporalities of legal status and those of migrants’ lived experiences, and explores the relationship between precarity and temporality. Ethnographic research conducted among recent migrants from China living in Perth, Western Australia with a focus on migrants who have been sponsored by employers to work and remain in Australia, demonstrates that while migrants may hold temporary or permanent visas, their migration objectives and settlement processes do not necessarily accord with their formal status. Many individuals who arrived in Australia with the intention of quickly attaining permanent residency find their plans are stymied by shifting circumstances and changes to migration legislation. They instead continue to experience the precarious employment, liminality and family disruption that come with a prolonged and indeterminate temporariness. Meanwhile others have become permanent residents despite arriving as self-imagined sojourners, employment in Australia very often only the next step in a series of temporary labour migrations. Even after many years of permanent status, however, these migrants commonly experience a limited sense of belonging and imagine futures that entail circular patterns of on-migration. The case studies presented disrupt the sense of permanence that is implied in secure legal statuses, and provide evidence of the lasting impact of precarious temporalities.
This volume is an impressive intellectual feat, bringing together, for the first time, detailed examinations of the varying ways multiracial populations are classified and categorized around the world. Aspinall and Rocha offer a comprehensive guide to the history of classifying mixed-race people and contemporary approaches to measuring mixed identities, paying specific attention to the political consequences that follow the creation and legitimation of racial schemas in the census. This timely and important work adds empirical depth and comparative scope to a subject that will only grow in importance in coming years.
In this article, we contrast the digital kinning and digital homing practices of PRC Chinese transnational grandparents in Australia from two migration cohorts. Our case studies demonstrate that these digital practices form an integral part of the ability to anticipate aging futures. This “digital anticipation” not only helps to safeguard and affirm social and cultural identities that are often at risk as people age in migrant settings, but also provides the potential to imagine either a future return to China that involves physical separation from children and grandchildren, or, conversely, a future lived in Australia while still maintaining connection and participating digitally in affective economies that extend beyond the nuclear family to encompass siblings, friends, and lifelong workmates. Here the role of facilitated digital access is highlighted as a form of care that can be provided by younger generations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.