Subtitle:
By:Shaochun Zhang
Publisher:Social Sciences Academic Press
ISBN:978-7-5228-1447-6
Publication Date:2023-04-23
Language:Chinese
This book draws on the distinction made by theorists such as Marx and Weber between 'unfree labour' and 'free workers', and introduces the concept of 'structural freedom'. It seeks to develop this concept as an analytical tool to discuss the remarkable phenomenon of skilled migration in global population movements. Through fieldwork conducted in Singapore with a group of semiconductor engineers from China, the book reveals the freedoms and constraints of migrants in transnational employment and life. Through a holistic discussion of the areas of mobility, work, life and family, the book reveals two levels of 'structural freedom' in the transnational lives of this group. Behind this are the ways in which the various subjects are involved in the ongoing demarcation of boundaries, thereby recreating the structural nature of change. The concluding section discusses how the 'structuralities' behind it are produced and what kind of 'subjectivities' are formed by migrants, and extends the discussion to discuss the implications of this concept for the study of mobile populations, for example, in the study of east-west, rural-urban and ethnic population movements in China. It also discusses the implications of this concept for the study of migrant populations, such as the study of east-west, urban-rural and ethnic population movements in China.