Life Satisfaction of Rural Migrant Workers in Urban China: The Roles of Community Service Participation and Identity Integration

Abstract

China is home to approximately 245 million rural-to-urban migrant workers. The influx of migrants into urban areas has posed various challenges for local social service systems. Recently, increasing number of community services have been developed to meet the growing service demands from the migrant population. However, whether increase in community service use results in improved wellbeing among migrant workers remains critically unexplored. As such, this study examines the role of community service use in migrant workers’ life satisfaction and the potential mediating effect of identity integration in Shenzhen, China. Bootstrapped models were adopted to examine relationship among variables. Drawing from a sample of 1,087 rural-to-urban migrant workers, we found that community service use is positively correlated with both identity integration and migrant workers’ life satisfaction. Moreover, identity integration served as a partial mediator between community service use and life satisfaction. The mediating effect of identity integration was found to increase with age. This study highlights that diverse services should be implemented to address divergent needs of migrants in different age groups. Community service can also serve as a vehicle to foster integration among migrant workers in host communities, especially for older age groups. Future studies may further investigate the relationships between community social capital, community social support, quality of community-based organization and frequency of service use so as to optimize the life satisfaction of migrant workers.     

华文夏令营对华裔新生代中华文化认同的影响及思考

华文夏令营通过提供文化知识和中国阅历来影响和增强华裔新生代的中华文化认识、认知、认同,从而增强其与中国的向心力和凝聚力,并能够在世界舆论场中对所在国受众更好地讲述中国故事。华文夏令营在实际运作中的确起到了增强华裔新生代中华文化认同的作用。因此,应该正视夏令营举办中的不足,总结经验,改进创办模式,通过运用新媒体和新技术手段保持与华裔新生代的长期联系,巩固华裔新生代对中华文化的认同。     

Whose ‘wee country’?: identity politics and sport in Northern Ireland

This article responds to calls in this journal for increased attention to identity, culture, power and sport. It explores, for the first time, the lived realities of identity politics in a divided society, through interviews with 12 self-declared Irish nationalists and republicans that represented Northern Ireland. Important insights are revealed into national eligibility decisions for either Irish team, motivated mainly by ‘shop window’ visibility and being seen as the best of a peer group. Political and sporting nationalisms were not necessarily analogous. A significant original finding is that the lived experiences of being closer to ‘the other’ resulted in an overall reinforcement rather than dissolution of difference. Visual and oral ‘national’ symbols such as flag, and especially anthem, delineated such difference, being symbolic walls of the mind. ‘Our wee country’ was thus a polarised and polarising fantasy shield. The article concludes by reconsidering the role of sport as a lens through which to examine identity and its’ place as part of the ‘problem’ and ‘solution’.     

Growing up on the sidelines: identity negotiations of Palestinian youth from ‘collaborating’ families relocated to Israel

By examining the experiences of the children of Palestinian collaborators whose families have relocated to Israel, this study explores how youth negotiate self within the context of marginalisation and cultural dislocation. Due to the actions of their parents, the research participants have become outsiders and outcasts in their Palestinian communities of origin, outsiders in Israel, and outsiders among Israeli-Arabs. Based on qualitative, in-depth interviews with 11 Palestinian male youths, we describe and analyse the experience of identity negotiation in the context of fear and their families’ past deceit. Our findings highlight that the youths’ identities are negotiated by engaging in a dialogue of self on belonging and not belonging that is based on visions of their past, present and future selves. This is accompanied by a forced dialogue with others, explaining who they are in order to fit in with the ‘audience’, a presentation that is then acted out.     

社会主义多民族国家制度性国家认同的实现机制

个体身份认同的基础是利益需求的满足.在我国,要实现中华民族多元一体的国家认同,除进行国族重构和文化融合之外,还需寻找到一个能超越族群差异的制度认同基础,从制度维度对国族认同与文化认同进行补充,三维立体式地构建中华多元一体的国家认同大厦.我国建党在先、以党建国、党政同构和党国同构的鲜明特点,决定了实现制度性国家认同必须以执政党认同为基础.在少数民族地区,公民是以原生性特征为基础还是以执政党及其制度为基础来进行认同,取决于二者谁更能深入持久地积极影响和改变少数族群的生活.在执政党认同、制度认同、国家认同之间存在正相关关系,三者可以相互促进、转化,也可相互削弱.     

复兴大业中的“中华民族”:从自发到自觉

对"中国"、"民族"、"中华"以及"华夏"等概念的梳理可以看出,中华民族的形成在历史上经历了一个漫长的、多民族融合的、自发的过程。近代以后,在外来压力之下,又经历了一段自觉的过程。借鉴前苏联、美国的民族政策,"中国梦"要想实现,必须寻找共同价值指引,强大内在力量,即实现"中华民族"作为一个"国族"的自觉认同。     

从《了不起的盖茨比》中的女性人物透视“爵士时代”女性价值观

菲茨杰拉德在小说《了不起的盖茨比》中塑造出3个不同社会阶层、不同文化教养、性格气质迥异却具有依附男人而生活、靠男人的追逐来实现自身价值的共同特质的女性人物。这种特质表明了这些女性人物的生活模式以及意识领域中的腐朽寄生性,折射出"爵士时代"的女性心理结构及伦理规范。     

The other Chinese: identity work and self-orientalization of Chinese host country nationals in multinational corporations

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on an in-depth case study of narrative identity work to explore heuristically the role of host country nationals in the reproduction of orientalist discourses in multinational corporations (MNCs). Based on this analysis, it presents an identity strategy termed the other Chinese. The other Chinese claims to be in-between the West, that is constructed as superior modern and rational, and China, that is constructed as backwards and chaotic. This in-betweenness allows the other Chinese to take the role of a mediator between locals and expatriates, and at the same time claim superiority towards normal Chinese. Thus, this identity construction is a creative act of hybridization and localization, but it is not subversive to existing power structures in the MNCs. However, as we show, the construction of the other Chinese is not inextricably bound to the field of the MNCs, but is based on a hybrid and creative entanglement of various sources such as class positions and public discourse in China, in which the MNCs only occupy an insignificant role. It is, therefore, to be understood as an aspect of identity construction in China relevant for MNC identity, rather than an aspect of the transnational field of the MNCs.     

东南亚华人地域认同的历史和未来

东南亚华人的地域认同,是华人研究的课题之一.按照其历史形态的演化过程,可以从心理地理空间认同、政治地理空间认同和跨国社会地理空间认同这个三重性维度进行考察.     

Cemetery locus as a mechanism of socio-cultural identity

In cultural studies of cemetery locus there is a very important aspect of understanding the cemetery as a tool for the formation of the socio-cultural identity of living people. I adhere to the point of view that the cemetery has always produced, and continues to produce, a variety of identities. While during the pre-Modern period the cemetery was a necessary element of individual self-understanding as a member of a certain community, in the Modern era the cemetery produces more particularistic identities. Modernity generates some universal and abstract schemes of identification, and by means of the repression of death from public consciousness, cemeteries lose their role as a focal point in social communication. I draw attention to the radical utopian ideas of the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov, who not only considered the cemetery as a locus of memory, but also proclaimed the task of the transformation of cemeteries into a base for universal work on resurrection of dead ancestors and the restoration of brotherly relations in all mankind.