In‐between: Re‐migration, orbital mobilities and emotional circulations of women from China to Taiwan and back to China

Abstract

After a first labour migration from the countryside to the city in China, some Chinese migrant working women are engaged in marriage migration to Taiwan. There, they face social, gendered and economic subalternity. Therefore, some women divorce and re‐migrate to China, to the city they had been previously working in, where they remobilise social, economic and emotional resources, as well as the new competences and knowledge capitalised during mobility experiences in China and Taiwan. They oscillate between new local and global scales, and generate creative social, economic and emotional connections among spaces, places and people. Mobilities take the shape of physical and virtual, material and emotional ‘orbits’, connecting diverse spatialities, temporalities and affections. Drawing on a multi‐situated global ethnographic work tracking women's migrations from China to Taiwan and from Taiwan to China, this article contributes to the study of physical and virtual, material and emotional mobilities of migrants in a globalised social world of interconnection and hypermobility. It provides insights to apprehend, theoretically, methodologically and empirically, the link between mobilities, emotions the digitalisation of social and economic practices. Navigating through spatialities, temporalities and emotions, Chinese women produce ‘in‐between’ cosmopolitan biographies inside mutating and fluid local and global, physical and virtual, spaces. Mobilities take an orbital shape, embedded in social and affectional relations, economic practices, and emotions.

Domestic Violence in Cross-Border Marriages: A Systematic Review

“…Financial and economic dependence was discussed in ( n =11) articles as a cause of domestic violence in cross-border marriage. One of the ways used in oppressing cross-border women is through economic and financial abuse (Block, 2021a; Chatterjee & Desai, 2020; Chowbey, 2017; Statham, 2020; Statham et al, 2020; Zani, 2020). Research revealed most immigrants are unemployed despite their educational qualification which forces them to take up menial jobs hence heavily dependent on the men (Zani, 2019, 2020), stereotyping them as “dependent” (Tang & Wang, 2014).…”

“…And even when they summed up courage to return, studies reported that there would be the problem of re-integration, especially when they return with foreign children whose father no longer want them or had refused custody (Kim, 2010; Kim & Kim, 2020; Kim et al, 2016). Researchers report that these women had to face double trauma, one of re-integration and the other accepting their children (Carver, 2016; Kim et al, 2016; Zani, 2020). These women, after being divorced, mostly become homeless (Haile et al, 2020) mostly because of poverty, domestic violence, and lack of access to housing due to their uncertain legal status (Block, 2021a, 2021b; Haile et al, 2020; Kanchanachitra & Chuenglertsiri, 2020; Kim & Kim, 2020; Lorke, 2019).…”

“…Cross-border wives vulnerability led to several consequences such as re-integration difficulties for returnees to their country of origin (Zani, 2020). Reason being that, as soon as they step out of their country of origin, most of these women lose their inheritance to obtain another identity in their country of residence where their husbands live (Chaudhuri et al, 2014).…”

WeChat, we sell, we feel: Chinese women’s emotional petit capitalism

“…Demonstrating determination and commitment, while being excluded from the formal sector, she negotiates discrimination by putting herself into new sectors of the labour market where hierarchies are less likely to occur (Portes et al, 1999). Based on the use of ICT and virtual social networks, from creative intersubjective online gatherings, socializations and interactions, new digital economies are produced (Zani 2020).…”

The role of children in marital relationships and (in)stability of cross‐border stepfamilies in Hong Kong

“…Remarriage studies have highlighted the importance of children from previous unions in increasing conflict and instability in remarriage (Teachman, 1986(Teachman, , 2008Whitton et al, 2013). However, with some notable exceptions (Lu, 2008;Tosukul, 2010;Zani, 2020), studies of remarried foreign brides in Asian countries have mainly focused on their motives for transnational marriages, paying little attention to their postmigration marital relationships (Constable, 2003;Lauser, 2008;To, 2019b). Lu (2008) and Tosukul (2010) examined the marital experience and negotiation of gender roles in international remarriages.…”