From China to SpainChinese immigrants in anthropological view

Resumen

Chinese migrants’ arrival to Europe was related to the introduction of the reform and opening program of China. In Europe, Spain is one of the important migration destinations for Chinese immigrants. In Spain Chinese communities are located all over the country. The statistical data show that the number of Chinese immigrants in Europe and Spain has been raising even under the global economic crisis while the numbers of other immigrants in Spain have been decreasing. Therefore, the phenomenon of Chinese immigrants has attracted people’s attention, both public and academic. In this research we will concentrate in some main concerns of Chinese immigrants, which are life-mode study of Chinese immigrants and their networks both for social and economic aspects. They are also the main objectives of the research, to reveal the life-mode of Chinese immigrants in Spain and how the social network and the business network are carried out among Chinese immigrants throughout the fieldwork and investigation. To achieve these main academic purposes, this study is structured into two parts with six chapters. The first part of the study is the investigation design which focuses on the academic results of the research carried out － the state of the art. In this section, related previous results about Chinese migration are summed up and contextualised, such as Chinese migrants’ distributions in Spain and Murcia and their hometown of origin known as Qiao Xiang. The concept of ethnicity, transnational migration, family enterprise debate, life-modes analysis and network study are further important relevant theoretical frames for the research, which are stated in the chapter as well. On the base of the previous studies and the elaboration of objectives (second chapter) and methodology (third chapter), results of the research will be presented in the second part of the research－ “Research Results”. The study of Chinese self-employed immigrants is crucial for the study, in the second part, the fourth chapter firstly argue about wage-earners and self-employed among Chinese immigrants, and then it’s crucial to reveal both wage-earner life-mode and self-employed life-mode. Referring to our on-going empirical study about Chinese self-employed immigrants we could propose to analyse the case of Chinese self-employed with the approach about the life-mode of self-employed, which was developed in the frame of the life-mode analysis. This theory contextualizes the different meanings of work among self-employed store owners and wage earners. Since the amount of Chinese immigrants is rising and their effect is becoming stronger, especially on the economy aspect, therefore the research of their economic activities is necessary and has realistic meaning. To understand better Chinese immigrants’ self-employed businesses, it’s necessary to summarize different types of Chinese self-employed businesses and the characters of each type. Besides common features of wage-earner life-mode and self-employed life-mode, we will find out new features of these two life-modes in Chinese immigrants’ context, especially how Chinese self-employed mix their private life with their self-employed work. As well it is import to argue the reason why Chinese immigrants tend to become self-employed and what business strategies they adopt for their self-employed businesses. In this chapter the family enterprise debate on Chinese immigrants’ business is another important aspect for an economic anthropological study on Chinese immigrants in Spain. The arguments of transnational study of Chinese immigrants are stated in the fifth chapter, the arguments include the investigation of Chinese immigrants’ transnational life, so as their transnational network and business. And the concept of transnational business leads to the concept of ‘ethnic business’ among Chinese immigrants. In this chapter Chinese immigrants’ network, both social network and business network will be argued, the investigation shows the functions of Chinese immigrants’ network and why the network is the key feature of Chinese immigrants. The last part of the research is a solid network investigation carried out in a Chinese clothing store where I did my participant observation fieldwork. In this chapter I will introduce the concept of purchasing group and opinion leader, and most importantly how purchasing groups functioning among Chinese clothing stores and why the purchasing group doesn’t exist in other types of Chinese immigrants’ self-employed businesses. According to the data gained from the investigation, the program UCINET will form the matrix and carry out the graph of graph theory of Chinese clothing store’s business network.