Millionaire Migrants E-Book

David Ley

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: RGS-IBG Book Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 664

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Based on extensive interviewing and access to a wide range of databases, this is an examination of the migration career of wealthy migrants who left East Asia and relocated to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, in the 1980s and 1990s. * An interdisciplinary project based on over 15 years of research in Vancouver, Toronto, and Hong Kong, with additional comparative visits and consultations in Sydney, Beijing, and Singapore * Traces the histories of the migrants families over a 25 year period * Offers a critical view of the spatial presuppositions of neo-liberal globalization, and an insertion of geography into transnational theory

Leseprobe

Contents

Copyright

List of Figures

List of Tables

Series Editors’ Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter One Introduction: Trans-Pacific Mobility and the New Immigration Paradigm

Geographies of Transnational Migration

The Globalizing State, the Business Migrant and the Neo-Liberal Stage

Conceptual Themes and Variations

China Moves

SARS: Toronto Goes Global

Re-directing Orientalism

Travelling Agents

Murder and the Media

Millionaire Migrants: The Journey Ahead

A Note on Origins and Methods

Chapter Two Transition: From the Orient to the Pacific Rim

Orientalism Unleashed

The Spectre of Chinatown

Advances in Chinatown

Charting the Pacific Rim, Assembling a Network

Ideologies of Growth: Talking Up the Rim

The Pacific Rim qua Political Economy

The Pacific Rim and the Neo-Liberal Era

Expo 86: The Circus Comes to Town

Immigration: Spreading the Net in Asia Pacific

Emptying the Nets: East Asian Landings by the Number

Conclusion

Chapter Three Calculating Agents: Millionaire Migrants Meet the Canadian State

Cornucopia from Asia Pacific

Institutional Facilitators

Calculations in Hong Kong and Taiwan

The Geographical Conundrum

Seeking Information

The Calculating State

Beneath the Radar: Locating the Neo-Liberal Subject

The Controversy over the Disclosure of Global Assets

Conclusion

Chapter Four Geography (still) Matters: Homo Economicus and the Business Immigration Programme

‘Many People Here Are Only Working for their Pocket Money’2

Disciplining the Author: More Interviews

Accounting for Success and Failure

From Ethnography to Data Bases

Deconstructing the Business Immigration Programme

Conclusion: Roughing up the Isotropic Plain

Chapter Five Embodied Real Estate: The Cultural Mobility of Property

Embodied Property

Bearing Property Overseas

Flighty Real Estate Capital

Transnational Real Estate

Marketing Intermediaries

On to the Suburbs

The New Spaces of Chinese-Canadians

A Global Property Market: ‘Long Live the Global City’

Inflation in the Housing Market: The Politics of Explanation

Conclusion

Chapter Six Immigrant Reception: Contesting Globalization… or Resistant Racism?

Challenges to Open Borders

Municipal Affairs: The Rise of the Neighbourhood

Assessing Growth: Public Debates and Dirty Tricks

The Place of Race

Multicultural Whitewash?

Grieving for a Lost Home

Off-shore Regattas

The ‘Monster House’ Saga

Despatches from the Trenches

Interventions, Interpretations, Imputations and Name-Calling

Multicultural Conclusion: A Compromise in Shaughnessy

Chapter Seven Establishing Roots: From the Nuclear Family to Substantive Citizenship

The Transnational Chinese-Canadian Family

The Understimulated Male

The Resilient Woman

Astronaut and Satellite Kids

Education and the Student Vanguard

The Geography of Educational Advantage

The Trade in University Credentials

The Asian-Canadian Church: From Isolation to Integration

Settlement Agencies: Building the Bridges

Participation, Citizenship, Belonging, Identity: Climbing the Integration Ladder

Conclusion

Chapter Eight Roots and Routes: The Myth of Return or Transnational Circulation?

Return Migration: Themes and Variations

Movers and Stayers among East Asian Migrants

The Return of the 1.5 Generation

The Mid-Career Returnee

Planning Ahead

Retirement and the Myth of Return

Conclusion

Chapter Nine Conclusion: Immigrants in Space

Globalization’s Prospect

The Other Globalization

Geographies of Transnationalism

‘Hongcouver’

Notes

References

Index

RGS-IBG Book Series

Published

Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines

David Ley

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Complex Locations: Women’s geographical work in the UK 1850–1970

Avril Maddrell

Value Chain Struggles: Institutions and Governance in the Plantation Districts of South India

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Queer Visibilities: Space, Identity and Interaction in Cape Town

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Arsenic Pollution: A Global Synthesis

Peter Ravenscroft, Hugh Brammer and Keith Richards

Resistance, Space and Political Identities: The Making of Counter-Global Networks

David Featherstone

Mental Health and Social Space: Towards Inclusionary Geographies?

Hester Parr

Climate and Society in Colonial Mexico: A Study in Vulnerability

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Geochemical Sediments and Landscapes

Edited by David J. Nash and Sue J. McLaren

Driving Spaces: A Cultural-Historical Geography of England’s M1 Motorway

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Badlands of the Republic: Space, Politics and Urban Policy

Mustafa Dikeç

Geomorphology of Upland Peat: Erosion, Form and Landscape Change

Martin Evans and Jeff Warburton

Spaces of Colonialism: Delhi’s Urban Governmentalities

Stephen Legg

People/States/Territories

Rhys Jones

Publics and the City

Kurt Iveson

After the Three Italies: Wealth, Inequality and Industrial Change

Mick Dunford and Lidia Greco

Putting Workfare in Place

Peter Sunley, Ron Martin and Corinne Nativel

Domicile and Diaspora

Alison Blunt

Geographies and Moralities

Edited by Roger Lee and David M. Smith

Military Geographies

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A New Deal for Transport?

Edited by Iain Docherty and Jon Shaw

Geographies of British Modernity

Edited by David Gilbert, David Matless and Brian Short

Lost Geographies of Power

John Allen

Globalizing South China

Carolyn L. Cartier

Geomorphological Processes and Landscape Change: Britain in the Last 1000 Years

Edited by David L. Higgitt and E. Mark Lee

Forthcoming

Aerial Life: Spaces, Mobilities, Affects

Peter Adey

Globalizing Responsibility: The Political Rationalities of Ethical Consumption

Clive Barnett, Paul Cloke, Nick Clarke & Alice Malpass

Living Through Decline: Surviving in the Places of the Post-Industrial Economy

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Swept-Up Lives? Re-envisaging ‘the Homeless City’

Paul Cloke, Sarah Johnsen and Jon May

In the Nature of Landscape: Cultural Geography on the Norfolk Broads

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Transnational Learning: Knowledge, Development and the North-South Divide

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Domesticating Neo-Liberalism: Social Exclusion and Spaces of Economic Practice in Post Socialism

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This edition first published 2010

© 2010 David Ley

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ley, David.

Millionaire migrants: trans-Pacific life lines/David Ley.

p. cm. – (RBS-IBG book series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4051-9291-0 (hardcover: alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1 4051-9292-7 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. East Asia–Emigration and immigration. 2. Canada–Emigration and immigration. 3. Elite (Social sciences)–East Asia. 4. Elite (Social sciences)–Canada. 5. International business enterprises–East Asia. 6. International business enterprises– Canada. 7. Transnationalism.

I. Title.

JV8756.5.L49 2010

304.8095–dc22

2009036205

List of Figures

1.1Pender Street, Chinatown, 20081.2Concord Pacific Place (left to right), fronting Vancouver’s downtown peninsula, 20082.1Distribution of self-designated ethnic Chinese, City of Vancouver, 19712.2Restoring Chinatown, 1970s2.3Exports from British Columbia, 1992–20062.4Imports to British Columbia, 1992–20062.5Air passenger traffic through YVR on selected routes, 1984–20002.6Canadian economic indicators, 1961–953.1Hong Kong, Taiwanese and South Korean landings in Canada, 1980–20013.2Remembering Tiananmen Square: The Goddess of Democracy memorial in Vancouver3.3Hong Kong and Taiwanese landings in Greater Vancouver, 1980–20014.1Homeownership in 1996 among 1986–96 landings of self-designated ethnic Chinese households, Vancouver CMA4.2Households below the poverty line in 1996 among 1986–1996 landings of self-designated ethnic Chinese households, Vancouver CMA5.1Selling the Palisades: marketing downtown Vancouver condominiums in Hong Kong, 19965.2Major development projects and downtown neighbourhoods5.3Million dollar house listings for two agents, Westside Vancouver, 1996–985.4Asian-themed malls in part of north-central Richmond5.5Distribution of self-designated ethnic Chinese, City of Vancouver, 19815.6Distribution in 1996 of self-designated ethnic Chinese, landing in Canada 1986–96, Vancouver CMA5.7MLS real house prices in eight Canadian CMAs, 1971–965.8House prices, immigration and domestic migration, Greater Vancouver, 1977–20026.1Essential Shaughnessy6.2‘Style wars’: a large modern house in Westside Vancouver, built c 1990, comprehensively renovated to a traditional vernacular style, c 20006.3Westside neighbourhoods and zoning interventions, early 1990s6.4The compromise landscape: a large new house with revival elements including gables, turret, cedar shakes, ornate brick chimney, wood mouldings and stone wall, marketed by Manyee Lui7.1Provincial ranks of Westside secondary schools, 2002–068.1Chek Lap Kok airport, Hong Kong

List of Tables

2.1Immigrant landings in Canada by destination and class of entry, 1980–20012.2Business class landings by type in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, by country of last permanent address, 1980–20013.1Reasons cited by business immigrants for migration to Canada/Vancouver5.1Correlates of annual nominal house prices in Vancouver, 1971–96 1545.2Selected correlates of changing dwelling values in Vancouver CMA by census tract, 1986–96 1556.1Resident preferences for downzoning changes, Westside neighbourhoods, 1992 1868.1Estimation of the loss of Hong Kong and Taiwanese immigrants from Canada 2338.2Contrasting attributes, among Hong Kong-born, of returnees to Hong Kong and, stayers in Canada 235

Series Editors’ Preface

The RGS-IBG Book Series only publishes work of the highest internationalstanding. Its emphasis is on distinctive new developments in human andphysical geography, although it is also open to contributions from cognatedisciplines whose interests overlap with those of geographers. The Seriesplaces strong emphasis on theoretically-informed and empirically-strongtexts. Reflecting the vibrant and diverse theoretical and empirical agendasthat characterize the contemporary discipline, contributions are expectedto inform, challenge and stimulate the reader. Overall, the RGS-IBGBook Series seeks to promote scholarly publications that leave anintellectual mark and change the way readers think about particular issues,methods or theories.

For details on how to submit a proposal please visit:

www.rgsbookseries.com

Kevin Ward

University of Manchester, UK

Joanna Bullard

Loughborough University, UK

RGS-IBG Book Series Editors

Acknowledgements

Whether authors are aware of it or not, book writing is a social project. The characters backstage do much more than act as a supporting cast to enable the front stage actions of the alternately inspired and anguished author. In ways that are never quite evident to anyone they provide the social environment in which projects are born and develop.

So I gladly acknowledge my colleagues in Geography at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. As a ‘lifer’ at UBC I have benefitted enormously from the high academic standards and collegial environment sustained by faculty – an all too rare combination – that provided the milieu from which this book emerged. Past and present graduate and post-doctoral students I have mentored in Geography within the field of immigration and urbanization have also made a huge contribution through their own thesis work, as research assistants, or as commentators on all or part of the manuscript. I gratefully acknowledge the diverse contributions of Kay Anderson, Lachlan Barber, Harald Bauder, Laura Beattie, Jon Clifton, Heather Frost, Will Harvey, Elaine Ho, Sarah Jackson, Pablo Mendez, Markus Moos, Alison Mountz, Nick Lynch, Kris Olds, John Rose, Lawrence Santiago, Heather Smith, Dan Swanton, Sin Yih Teo, Justin Tse, Judy Tutchener, Luna Vives, Jo Waters and Graham Webber. Priscilla Wei was an exemplary administrator and also a resourceful project manager and key informant.

At an institutional level the Metropolis Project has continuously funded this research through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. ‘Metropolis’ created a valuable network of researchers, community practitioners and government policy managers. In particular I wish to thank Don DeVoretz, my co-Director at the Vancouver Metropolis Centre from 1996–2003, Dan Hiebert, my able successor and long-time ally, and Meyer Burstein and Howard Duncan at Citizenship and Immigration Canada who created and shepherded the Metropolis experiment with insight and broad-mindedness. Invaluable to my own work was the co-operation of SUCCESS and its impressive CEOs, Tung Chan and the late Lilian To, a leader who brought an extraordinary blend of professional energy and pastoral care to immigrant settlement. For fieldwork in Hong Kong I am grateful to George Lin at the University of Hong Kong for his generosity and direction, to John Ma (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) for valuable exchanges both on and off the tennis court, and to Chung Him (Hong Kong Baptist University). In Taipei I enjoyed the hospitality and local knowledge of Nora Chiang and her students and colleagues at the National Taiwan University. Through presentations and conversations through the Metropolis international network and other venues I learned from a talented multidisciplinary crew including Dick Bedford, Jock Collins, Kevin Dunn, Dan Hiebert, Audrey Kobayashi, Wei Li, Katharyne Mitchell, Ceri Peach, Valerie Preston, Jan Rath, Paul Spoonley, Steve Vertovec and Brenda Yeoh, who held me accountable in a spirit of supportive criticism.

In the final stages of the project I am very grateful for Kevin Ward’s careful stewardship as Editor of the valuable RGS-IBG research series, and for the publishing expertise of Jacqueline Scott, Liz Cremona and their teams at Wiley-Blackwell. Once again I acknowledge Eric Leinberger’s skilled hand in cartography.

A book project is never left behind in the office or the field, and I thank my family – Sandy, Katy, Mike, Susie and Chris – for their own special contributions and for allowing too many intrusions on family time. Finally, I am deeply grateful to the creative migrants from East Asia who shared their stories with a cultural interloper and made this project not only possible but also rewarding. In addition, I acknowledge the remarkable city of Vancouver, the other half of the fusion of people and place, which has provided such a compelling laboratory for a study of transnational migration.

David Ley, July 2009

Chapter One

Introduction: Trans-Pacific Mobility and the New Immigration Paradigm

The Commission concludes that the old paradigm of permanent migrant settlement is giving way to temporary and circular migration

Global Commission on International Migration 2005: 31

Following two years of consultation and analysis, the Global Commission on International Migration reported back to the Secretary-General of the United Nations in October 2005 (Martin and Martin 2006). Its report sought to organize and, through its own influence, disseminate to a governance and policy audience a new understanding of international migration that departed from an established paradigm. Conventional understanding, familiar to the administrators and theorists of new world settler societies, has spun a linear narrative of immigrant departure from the homeland, followed by the serial processes of arrival, settlement, citizenship and assimilation within the enveloping arms of a single nation state. But it has become apparent that this tidy arrangement has decreasing purchase in an era of unprecedented global mobility, labour flexibility and household dispersal. Transnationalism has become an umbrella term to describe the contemporary hyper-mobility of migrants across national borders, both those who are poor, sometimes undocumented, and merely tolerated or worse, and also those who are skilled or wealthy and eagerly solicited by nation states. Transnational migrants maintain connections in both their nations of origin and destination by e-mail, internet and telephone, through travel, economic ties and remittances, and in continuing social and cultural relationships. For a minority, political activity sustains contacts and commitments, especially when facilitated by the enfranchisement of dual citizenship.

Alternating periods of residence in origin and destination countries are variable, in some instances seasonal or short-term, while others again are part of a careful life plan of repeated movement that coincides with significant status passages. The prospect of movement is always latent, ready to be triggered by a family decision or an external event. So migration as described in the UN Commission’s text becomes more temporary, more circular, more flexible, than the conventional paradigm imagined. Mobility is not only shaped by immediate economic gradients, but also by other household projects that may well require the family itself to be globalized, dispersed among at least two nations, with periodic departures and reunions of family members. A fraught illustration of such transnationalism became evident during the war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. As nations speedily assembled an armada to rescue their expatriates in Lebanon, transnational citizens of Canada and Australia proved unexpectedly numerous. Canada discovered 40–50,000 citizens living in Lebanon in July 2006, almost double the number of American nationals, while Australia, with 25,000, enumerated more citizens in this formerly francophone nation than France (Saunders et al. 2006). Both states had small missions in Lebanon and were surprised and administratively overwhelmed by the scale of their populations. In appeals for a speedy registration prior to evacuation, and in a context of difficult communications, close to 40,000 Lebanese residents contacted the Canadian embassy in Beirut claiming citizenship. Some were on holiday with family members, but others were living more continuously in Lebanon and many were employed there. The Canadian state discovered an unanticipated transnational colony that it had obligations to rescue in precarious war conditions.