Browsing by Author "Wang, Luying"

During the last decades, internal migrants, particularly those from rural to urban constitute the major urban population growth in China. This thesis studies migrants’ residential choices and adaptation in Southeast China. Specifically, the purpose of this study is threefold: firstly, I ask whether migrants concentrate in their destination towns; secondly, I identify the determinants for their concentration in particular neighbourhoods; thirdly, I aim to understand how migrants’ residential concentration in particular neighbourhoods influences their adaptation.. The assumption underlying this research is that neighbourhoods matter to migrants. The theoretical framework is based on studies of urban neighbourhoods and migrants’ social networks, and theories explaining sociospatial changes in transitional China. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The 20 interviewees found by snowball method were asked in depth about their housing conditions and choices, and their relationship with the locals and other migrants. The cases were two small towns in Zhejiang, a southeast province in China. The purpose is to fill the gap in internal migrant studies in China: the majority of previous research focuses on big cities while migrants in small towns are overlooked. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse transcripts and field notes. Three themes are constructed from the data: residential concentration, determinants of concentration and migrants’ adaptation. Findings on the basis of themes are presented as follows. Migrants concentrate in their destination small towns. The reasons for their residential concentration are the tenure type (owning, renting, dormitory) and socioeconomic factors. Migrants tend to live close to people with the same type of tenure and from a similar socioeconomic background. External and internal factors drive migrants to concentrate in particular neighbourhoods. External factors include institutional marginalisation and discrimination both by the landlord and other local people. The major internal factor is migrants’ social network. Different types of concentration based on tenure types were identified, and these indicate different ways of adaptation: tolerating bad housing conditions as an economic strategy to survive; migrants and the locals viewing each other as 'others'; the perception of 'others' practiced and reinforced through everyday life. This research contributes to the former literature by systematically analysing social networks and migrants’ adaptation in respect of residential concentration. However, the differentiation among migrants still needs further studies. In addition, the temporary feature of Chinese migrants and their floating between urban and rural areas contest the conventional wisdom of urbanisation, requiring more investigation.