Abstract
This chapter theorizes the adaptive responses of Hong Kong return migrants and their transnational and transcultural practices in terms of their behavioral patterns. Based on intersectionality analysis and Bourdieu’s convertibility of forms of capital, the chapter argues their transnational practices and relative adaptability can be explained by Durkheim’s concept of anomie and Merton’s social strain theory in the sense that failures in attempts at capital conversion would result in strain, alienation or worse, self-estrangement. Using data from indepth interviews with a sample of return migrants in Hong Kong, the chapter attempts to identify, describe, and explain the variety of behavioral patterns and modes of emotional manifestations in the adaptation of Hong Kong returnees, and to identify their individual and collective strategies of coping to help solve their problems of adjustment and integration. The chapter has broad implications and consequences for understanding millions of migrants who are living out their lives in transit, in between the societies of departure and of arrival, while being fully aware of the positive and negative impact on their lives of multiple social forces in the global social field, in intersections and mutual entanglements with each other.
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Notes
- 1.
The set of data and their methods of collection on which this chapter is based are the same as in my Chap. 2 of this book, to which readers could refer, e.g., personal characteristics of the sample of respondents.
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Kwok-bun, C., Wai-wan, C. (2012). Social Strain and the Adaptive Behavior of Hong Kong Return Migrants. In: Plüss, C., Chan, Kb. (eds) Living Intersections: Transnational Migrant Identifications in Asia. International Perspectives on Migration, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2966-7_5
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