Asian Migrations

Housing more than half of the global population, Asia is a region characterised by increasingly diverse forms of migration and mobility. Offering a wide-ranging overview of the field of Asian migrations, this new handbook therefore seeks to examine and evaluate the flows of movement within Asia, as well as into and out of the continent. Through in-depth analysis of both empirical and theoretical developments in the field, it includes key examples and trends such as British colonialism, Chinese diaspora, labour migration, the movement of women, and recent student migration. Organised into thematic parts, the topics cover: The historical context to migration in Asia Modern Asian migration pathways and characteristics The reconceptualising of migration through Asian experiences Contemporary challenges and controversies in Asian migration practice and policy Contributing to the retheorising of the subject area of international migration from non-western experience, the Routledge Handbook of Asian Migrations will be useful to students and scholars of migration, Asian development and Asian Studies in general.

This textbook describes and explains the complex reality of contemporary internal and international migrations in East Asia. Taking an interdisciplinary approach; Tony Fielding combines theoretical debate and detailed empirical analysis to provide students with an understanding of the causes and consequences of the many types of contemporary migration flows in the region. Key features of Asian Migrations: Comprehensive coverage of all forms of migration including labour migration, student migration, marriage migration, displacement and human trafficking Text boxes containing key concepts and theories More than 30 maps and diagrams Equal attention devoted to broad structures (e.g. political economy) and individual agency (e.g. migration behaviours) Emphasis on the conceptual and empirical connections between internal and international migrations Exploration of the policy implications of the trends and processes discussed Written by an experienced scholar and teacher of migration studies, this is an essential text for courses on East Asian migrations and mobility and important reading for courses on international migration and Asian societies more generally.

Migration is at the heart of Asian history. For centuries migrants have tracked the routes and seas of their ancestors - merchants, pilgrims, soldiers and sailors - along the Silk Road and across the Indian Ocean and the China Sea. Over the last 150 years, however, migration within Asia and beyond has been greater than at any other time in history. Sunil S. Amrith's engaging and deeply informative book crosses a vast terrain, from the Middle East to India and China, tracing the history of modern migration. Animated by the voices of Asian migrants, it tells the stories of those forced to flee from war and revolution, and those who left their homes and their families in search of a better life. These stories of Asian diasporas can be joyful or poignant, but they all speak of an engagement with new landscapes and new peoples.

This collection explores how South Asian migrations in modern history have shaped key aspects of globalization since the 1830s. Including original research from colonial India, Fiji, Mexico, South Africa, North America and the Middle East, the essays explore indentured labour and its legacies, law as a site of regulation and historical biography. Including recent scholarship on the legacy of issues such as consent, sovereignty and skilled/unskilled labour distinctions from the history of indentured labour migrations, this volume brings together a range of historical changes that can only be understood by studying South Asian migrants within a globalized world system. Centering south Asian migrations as a site of analysis in global history, the contributors offer a lens into the ongoing regulation of labourers after the abolition of slavery that intersect with histories in the Global North and Global South. The use of historical biography showcases experiences from below, and showcases a world history outside empire and nation.

Southeast Asia has long been a crossroad of cultural influence and transnational movement, but the massive migration of Southeast Asians throughout the world in recent decades is historically unprecedented. Dispersal, compelled by economic circumstance, political turmoil, and war, engenders personal, familial, and spiritual dislocation, and provokes a questioning of identity and belonging. This volume features original works by scholars from Asia, America, and Europe that highlight these trends and perspectives on Southeast Asian migration within and beyond the Asia-Pacific region. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach -- with contributions from sociology, political science, anthropology, and history -- and anchored in empirical case studies from various Southeast Asian countries, it extends the scope of inquiry beyond the economic concerns of migration, and beyond a single country source or destination, and disciplinary focus. Analytic focus is placed on the forces and factors that shape migration trajectories and migrant incorporation experiences in Asia and Europe; the impact of migration and immigration status on individuals, families, and institutions, on questions of equity, inclusion, and identity; and the triangulated relationships between diasporic communities, the sending and receiving countries. Of particular importance is the scholarly attention to lesser known populations and issues such as Vietnamese in Poland, children and the 1.5 generation immigrants, health and mental consequences of state sponsored violence and protracted encampment, ethnic media, and the challenges of both transnational parenting and family reunification. In examining the complex and creative negotiations that immigrants engage locally and transnationally in their daily lives, it foregrounds immigrant resilience in the strategies they adopt not only to survive but thrive in displacement.

The emotional, social, and economic challenges faced by migrants and their families are interconnected through complex decisions related to mobility. Tangled Mobilities examines the different crisscrossing and intersecting mobilities in the lives of Asian migrants, their family members across Asia and Europe, and the social spaces connecting these regions. In exploring how the migratory process unfolds in different stages of migrants’ lives, the chapters in this collected volume broaden perspectives on mobility, offering insight into the way places, affects, and personhood are shaped by and connected to it.

With the rapid economic development of China and the overall shift in the global political economy, there is now the emergence of new Chinese on the move. These new Chinese migrants and diasporas are pioneers in the establishment of multiple homes in new geographical locations, the development of new (global and hybrid) Chinese identities, and the creation of new (political, economic and social) inspirations through their mobile lives. This book identifies and examines new forms and paths of Chinese migration since the 1980s. It provides updated trends of migration movements of the Chinese, including their emergent geographies. With chapters highlighting the diversities and complexities of these new waves of Chinese migration, this volume offers novel insights to enrich our understanding of Asian mobility in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The book will be of interest to academics examining migration, mobility, diaspora, Chinese identity, overseas Chinese studies and Asian diaspora studies.

The migration of people within and beyond Asia no longer takes the form of permanent ruptures, uprooting, and resettlement. Today, such movement is more likely to be transient and complex, ridden with disruptions and detours, and based on translocal interconnections between places and multiple chains of movement. Written from various disciplinary perspectives, this collection of essays explores the migration experiences of a wide spectrum of people, from professional and managerial elites to contract workers and refugees. In addressing the nature of these Asian migrations, the authors demonstrate how mobility in today's world has transformed notions of citizenship and identity, and of displacement and home.

Men are disadvantaged in the marriage markets of many Asian countries, and in some cases their response is to look abroad for a partner. Receiving countries for marriage migrants include Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, while the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and parts of mainland China supply wives to these territories. In the absence of uniform international regulations concerning the rights and obligations of partners, such unions are treated differently in different jurisdiction. In extreme cases migrants or their children become stateless, and when marriages break down, migrants sometimes face major legal problems. In such circumstances, marriage migrants are often portrayed as powerless, uneducated victims. Rejecting this perspective, the authors in this volume explore the agency of women who migrate abroad to acquire opportunities unavailable to them in their homelands. They show that the trajectories of marriage migrants are often not a simple movement from home to destination but can involve return, repeated, or extended migrations, and that these transitions that can alter geographies of power in economics, nationality or ethnicity. Based on features shared by many marriage migrants, the book identifies them as an emerging minority at the frontier of the nation-state, a group whose status may well carry over to future generations.

This edited collection of essays describes the main broad streams of Asian migration and their wide geographical spread, both in terms of migrants' origins and their destinations. Evidence comes from several of the countries of South and East Asia. It shows migrants moving within their own countries; abroad but still within Asia; and overseas particularly to Britain and North America. The essays address both the subjective and objective causes of migration and some of the consequences, for the individual, the family and the migrant community both as an entity and in relation to the host society.