New Transnational Villages in Fujian Mette Thuno University of Copenhagen
Institutionalizing Recent Rural Emigration from China to Europe: New Transnational Villages in Fujian Mette Thuno University of Copenhagen Frank N. Pieke University of Oxford The prevalence of irregular migration from a small region in the central parts of Fujian province has associated Chinese emigration with orga nized crime, exploitation and opportunism in a range of popular and academic writings both in China and outside China. Although migra tion brokers ("snakeheads") play an important role in maintaining mi gratory flows already underway, they should not be seen as the root cause of migration from Fujian. In this article, we report on recently conducted fieldwork in two villages in central Fujian characterized by large-scale emigration to Europe. Emigration from this part of China is strongly embedded in local political, sociocultural and economic insti tutions and histories. Migration brokers are certainly a part, but not more than that, of these local institutions. We conclude that the local embeddedness of migration renders population mobility from each area in China highly specific, and broad generalizations on the causes, nature and direction of the totality of Chinese, or even Fujianese, migration are bound to misrepresent a highly complex reality. Since the early 1990s, the colorful language of "snakeheads" (translated from the Chinese word shetou assigned to migration brokers) has dominated dis cussions on the upsurge in Chinese international migration. In these dis cussions, Fujian province on the southeastern coast of China has played a prominent role. The prevalence of irregular migration from a small region in the central parts of this province has associated Chinese emigration with organized crime, exploitation and opportunism in a range of popular and academic writings both in China and outside China (see, e.g., Kyle and Dale, 2001; Shi, 2000; Smith, 1997).
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