This study explores the ways in which different life events I experienced between 2008 and 2013, such as my divorce and a new romance after the divorce, have affected my research as a PhD student. By examining the relationship between these events and my development as a researcher, I consider how the complexity of emotions and affect becomes a source of possibility for understanding my research participants and producing multidimensional, ethical research. Recognising the reciprocal relationship between researcher and researched subjects during the research process can, in fact, enrich researchers and create a better understanding of their own work and an understanding of the ways in which the research itself fits within their broader life goals.
Studies on migration often assume that members of the same ethnic category are less likely to develop exclusionary attitudes toward each other. In order to explain why many Hong Kong people exhibit exclusionary attitudes toward granting social rights to Chinese immigrants who share the same ethnic ancestry with them, we conducted a phone survey to examine four important factors: (1) economic threat; (2) social threat; (3) negative stereotypes; and (4) contact with immigrants. We find that the economic threat—either at the societal or individual level—perceived by respondents does not explain their exclusionary attitudes. The results are consistent with alternative explanations emphasizing cultural and non-economic concerns commonly associated with ethnocentrism.
This article examines the conflicting roles of ethnographers in the field, and the power relations between researchers and informants. The article posits the notion that the conflicting and multiple identities of an ethnographer could enrich and contribute immensely to ethnographic work in the field. The article explores how a researcher oscillates between multiple positions while conducting fieldwork, which is always contextual, relational, and politicized. Through an analysis of 20 months of fieldwork undertaken to study gender dynamics in two rural villages in Hong Kong, I illustrate how my experience as a native researcher depends on my multiple positions, and how the data collection experience is deeply enhanced by my identities. In this article, I argue that having multiple identities could work to a researcher's advantage in understanding the dynamics of the people within the locale. Contrary to the belief of upholding a dichotomous relationship between researchers and informants to safeguard objectivity during the research process, navigating among multiple identities and negotiating the axis Downloaded from 438 Isabella Ng Gender, Technology and Development, 15, 3 (2011): 437-456of differences and inequalities between the researcher and the informants, as I strongly argue, is a worthy endeavor in order to perform truly ethical and fruitful ethnographic research.
Policy-makers often refer to media reports and public opinion polls when advocating immigration policies. A good example of this is provided by Hong Kong, an international financial hub that prides itself on its multiculturalism and pluralism, but whose government officials and pro-establishment legislators have been calling for tougher measures because of a plethora of negative news reports on immigrants. This study examines how print media frames the issue of asylum seekers and refugees, with the findings indicating that the majority of local Chinese news articles portray asylum seekers negatively as Bfake refugees^and Bcriminals.^The study also examines newspapers' framing of the causes of requests for asylum and their recommendations for dealing with the Bproblem^: (1) setting up detention camps, (2) enforcing stricter border control, and (3) withdrawing from the UNCAT. It argues that the negative framing provides justifications for anti-refugee policy-makers to suggest tougher policy solutions to the issue of asylum seekers and refugees. Policy implications are discussed which may affect Hong Kong's position as a first-class global city.
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