What is it about?

Drawing on existing studies of immigrant transnationalism, we develop a concept of “social value of consumption” to explain the phenomenon of two-way consumption across national borders. Based on a case study of consumption patterns in migrant-sending communities in Fujian Province, China, we find that undocumented immigrants, despite their vulnerabilities and precarious circumstances associated with legal status in the host society, manage to realize the social value of consumption across national borders, and that they do so through conspicuous consumption, reciprocal consumption, agent-assisted consumption in their hometowns even without physical presence. We argue that this two-way consumption pattern is a type of seasonal transnationalism, which enables international migrants to take advantage of the uneven development between sending and receiving countries in the world system to maximize their expression of social status in more than one place and to achieve social status compensation in their hometowns. However, the impacts of two-way consumption on hometown development are more complicated than individual gains. While it helps address adjustment problems for immigrants in the host society and reduce the unequal distribution of resources in the hometown caused by international migration, this type of transnationalism serves to reactivate tradition and reinforce the existing structure of power in the hometown.

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Why is it important?

The “life-world (Lebenswelt in German)” and “system-world” of international immigrants (Habermas, 1994) are divided by diverse geospatial spaces. For the immigrant workers who work in oversea labor markets, the host country with a higher level of economic development is the “system-world” where they could attain the material interests and achieve the instrumental goals. When comparing to the home country with a lower level of economic development, by utilizing the economic advantages such as their monetary savings which are accumulated by a long-term retrenchment of consumption, and the preferential currency exchange rates, these immigrants could choose seasonal transnational practices and achieve their symbolic needs of consumption back in the home country, including consumption for leisure and achievement of social values. One of the most important forms of achievement of social values is that, the immigrants’ actions of consumption which are suppressed in the host country would be released instantly and massively in their hometown via trans-border flows, which could complete the reconstruction of social identity and development of social status. The international immigrants’ action of consumption in their hometown is a seasonal short-term exaggerating consumption rather than the daily consumption. In order to achieve the social values of consumption in hometown better, on one hand, the immigrants would try their best to suppress the daily expenses in host country, while suffering the longstanding lack of social reputation, and saving money actively; on another hand, they would choose to return to their hometown every year or every several years, to spend their long-term savings in host country in a short time. This trans-border two-way consumption may turn the immigrants into the successful achievers with richness and extravagant life style, which could help them achieve the social values of consumption successfully as well. The strategy of two-way consumption could also make the immigrants to get rid of their low social status and stigmatized reputation while blurring these differential social implications among the transnational or trans-border social spaces. When the immigrants return back to their hometown, they could “buy” the sense of high social status, achievement and satisfaction even in a short time.

Perspectives

Based on the case studies of Fuzhou immigrants in United States, this article discusses and analyzes the formation process, mechanism, and its societal consequences of the achievement of social values in consumption in a sociological perspective. We find that the Fuzhou immigrants who are mostly labor workers with low socioeconomic status face with the trouble of stigmatization of “undocumented immigrants” in United States, and the double exclusion by mainstream community and Chinatown Chinese community. The challenging and adverse circumstances these immigrants encounter, force them to adopt a retrenched consumption strategy, while enhancing their frugal habitus. These circumstances help them save money besides meeting the basic needs of labor reproduction and paying back the debt, which is used to fulfill their symbolic needs of consumption, and develop their social status and reputation. However, due to a series of structural barrier, it is difficult for them to meet their non-material symbolic needs via the conspicuous consumption in host country, while attaining the recognitions and accepts of mainstream and Chinese American community. But they could utilize the currency exchange rates and the gap of incomes of different countries; then implement the social status expression which is produced and suppressed in host country via transnational practices, while leading to the achievement of social values in consumption among transnational spaces. Besides conspicuous consumption (such as villas building, extravagant rites arranging) and entertaining consumption, the achievement of social values of Fuzhou immigrants is also implemented in a consumption form which could help improve the public welfares in community (such as ritual fees, and homecoming “meeting gifts”). This transnational consumption improves the structural status of international immigrants, which is also regarded as a compensation for their location loss of social status. Part of the social values of consumption would be transferred to the immigrants’ family members, who could show their oversea relatives’ social status and reputation via agent-assisted consumption as a “parasitic class” relying on oversea remittances.

Xiangyi Li
Sun Yat-Sen University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Cross-space Consumption among Undocumented Chinese Immigrants in the United States, Sociology of Development, June 2016, University of California Press,
DOI: 10.1525/sod.2016.2.2.158.
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