Immunity as a social practice
Chinese overseas students’ embodied communication in global mobility
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21790252 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ruoxi Li (0009-0002-7425-7522, Wuhan University), Ruoyi Li (Wuhan University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Pages | 1-18 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Chinese Journal of Communication (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1754-4769 • E-ISSN: 1754-4750 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17544750.2025.2516233 |
| OpenAlex | W4411431081 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 37 |
This study conceptualizes immunity as a social practice by analyzing Chinese overseas students’ embodied communication strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing from Esposito’s immunity theory and mediological framework, this study reveals the productive role of immunity in shaping novel forms of community life and social integration. Through digital ethnography and in-depth interviews with Chinese international students, the research identifies three distinct strategies of embodied interactions: (1) informing, in which students develop nuanced protocols that transform infection risk disclosure from potential stigma into community care; (2) transferring, in which protective behaviors, such as mask-wearing, evolve from being markers of cultural difference into normalized community standards; and (3) compensating, in which material hoarding and spatial arrangements serve as psychological buffers against uncertainty. These findings illuminate how immunity operates as a dynamic principle in negotiating both physical and symbolic boundaries in transnational contexts. This study advances scholarship on international student mobility by revealing how biopolitical constraints catalyze new forms of embodied agency. This reconceptualization of immunity as a social practice offers critical insights into how mobile populations navigate increasingly complex global health governance regimes while maintaining community connections across cultural and institutional boundaries
Economic growth · Economics · Embodied cognition · Political science · Sociology · Computer Science · Global Education and Multiculturalism · International Student and Expatriate Challenges · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development
Commonwealth
Modernity and self-identity
Zones of Exception
The Burnout Society
Techno-biopolitics under a tentative “state of exception”
Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on international higher education and student mobility
The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies
Modernity and Self-Identity
Communication Conduct in an Island Community
The Dynamics of Social Practice
Family-mediated migration infrastructure
To mask or not to mask amid the Covid-19 pandemic
Exploring the Psychological Impacts of Covid-19 Social Restrictions on International University Students
Masking fears
(Im)mobility and performance of emotions
Digital contact does not promote wellbeing, but face-to-face contact does
The Global Visa Regime and the Political Technologies of the International Self
Spanish Flu”
Weeds, Plagues, and Bodily Secretions
Beyond the ‘other’ as constitutive outside
Terms of the Political
Facework', Flow and the City
On Rereading The Presentation of Self
Infrastructures of immobility
Pandemic disruption, extended bodies, and elastic situations - Reflections on Covid-19 and Mobilities
Pandemic (Im)mobilities
Facing Airport Security
Specters of Marx
Esposito's affirmative biopolitics in multispecies homes
Toward an Affirmative Biopolitics
Roberto Esposito's 'Affirmative Biopolitics' and the Gift
Governmentalities of an Airport
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |