Albany- An ethnoburb to study subethnicities of new Chinese immigrants from China in New Zealand
Abstract
With three decades of “open-door” immigration in New Zealand (NZ), new Chinese immigrants from China no longer constitute a homogeneous group. Different waves of these immigrants arrived in NZ in different time periods, carrying distinctive characteristics; however, the subethnicities of these immigrants have never been conceptualised theoretically. The research investigates the subethnic divide of the China-born new immigrants in NZ and its implications for the formation of new Chinese ethnoburbs.
Albany, as an established and expanding suburb of Auckland with a significant Chinese population in both residence and business, was chosen as a typical example to show the powerful role the most recent China-born immigrants have played in the establishment of this new ethnoburb. Applying digitally enhanced research techniques in an ethnographically based study, the research tries to ask some fundamental questions in ethnic and migration studies, including 1) how do sub-ethnicities within the same diasporic group find residential and business settlement in different suburbs and form particularly different ethnoburbs? 2) how do local public facilities, services, and economic development conditions in a host society contribute to the formation of ethnoburbs? And 3) how do the suburban ethnic immigrant communities drive the development of the local economic infrastructure and activities? Answers to these questions will make significant theoretical contributions concerning the structural factors in the formation of ethnic space and place.
About the speaker
Dr. Liangni Sally Liu is a Senior Lecturer (tenured) in the School of Humanities, Media, and Creative Communication, Massey University, New Zealand. Dr. Liu’s primary research interest is in Chinese transnational migration. Her broader research interests include international migration, immigration policy, migratory mobility associated with migrant sexuality, and ethnic relations. Her research work has been published widely in the forms of book, book chapters and research articles in high-ranked peer-reviewed journals. Her most recent book entitled New Chinese migrants in New Zealand and their multi-generational families - Floating families? is included into the Routledge Series on Asian Migration. She has obtained a few prestigious research grants and visiting fellowships, including a 2-year funding from New Zealand Health Research Council (HRC) (2020-2022), a 3-year funding from the Marsden Fund (Fast-Start), Royal Society of New Zealand (2017-2020), a research funding from the Chinese Poll-Tax Heritage Trust, Department of Internal Affairs of New Zealand, and two visiting research fellowships from the New Zealand Centre at Peking University in 2017 and 2018. She has been on the editorial boards of Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Psyche and Journal of Chinese Overseas.
Date: Wednesday 4 May 2022
Time: 5:00-6:00 pm
Room: RH 103, Rutherford House, Pipitea Campus, VUW
Zoom link : https://vuw.zoom.us/j/99947103200