Reterritorialized Student Migrations in Comparison: Taiwanese Students in China and Malaysian Chinese Students in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Yi-Fan Wu, 吳伊凡
• Other Authors: Pei-Chia Lan
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/06749167761615701647

碩士 === 臺灣大學 === 社會學研究所 === 98 === This thesis paper compares two interesting cases of student migrants, who are both treated by their receiving countries as “compatriots returning to homeland”. They are: Taiwanese students who acquire higher education in China, and, Malaysian Chinese students who follow the long-lasting tradition to study in universities in Taiwan. For ages, “Studying abroad”, referring to migration to acquire higher education in foreign countries, is a common approach to cultivating human capital and achieving social mobility. In these two circulations of student migration, what they experience cannot be simply counted as the typical pattern of educational migration. Rather, their migrating stories has unveil an underdeveloped category of “compatriot student migrations”, whose favored positions and recruiting channels are provided under the similar yet distinct cross-border relations between compatriot/ huaqiao and homeland/nation. Most literature on student migration utilizes the theoretical lens of deterritorialization to portray the internationalization of higher education. Educational migration, as an investment in human capital, assists individuals in achieving future professional migration and social mobility in the context global capitalism. Here I argue that the migration of Taiwanese students in China, as well as Malaysian Chinese students in Taiwan, constitute together the deviant case of student migration in the following two senses. Firstly, the government of China recruits Taiwanese students via special venues, and the government of Taiwan refuses to recognize degrees issued by China; likewise, the Malaysian Chinese students have long been offered with also a special channel to study in Taiwan, despite the fact that their degrees issued by Taiwan would not be recognized by the Malaysian government. These institutional frameworks embody the territorialized logics of governance and the contested political and economic relations across Taiwan Strait, as well as the international relation of Taiwanese government towards overseas Chinese. Second, in both cases, these students hold motivations distinct from those going to traditional host countries. They chose to study in China/Taiwan not because te receiving country has obtained a globally hegemonic status in the production of knowledge. Their purposes are often beyond the seeking of degrees or knowledge. Also, their practice in accumulating combination of capitals should be further analyzed. Through in-depth interviews and analysis of relevant policy making, this research examines the motivations and trajectories of Taiwanese/Malaysian Chinese students moving to China/Taiwan for higher education, and to identify the embedded institutional and policy contexts. I pose questions regarding the macro context such as: How does the government of China/Taiwan establish special channels to recruit these two flows of students? How did these institutional frameworks change over time in relation to the shifting cross-border dynamics, the changing imagined community of what counts as “nation” within China and Taiwan? At the micro and meso levels, I ask: What motivates Taiwanese/Malaysian students to study in China/Taiwan? What do they wish to earn while studying in these places? What kinds of capital do they wish to cultivate or accumulate? Was the migration decision made individually or as a family strategy? How do their motivations differ across professions and majors?