The Reconstruction of the Cosmopolitan Imaginary

Chinese International Students during the Covid-19 Pandemic1

Bibliographic Data

ID2292145
AuthorsQing Tingting Liu (0009-0009-2759-1406, University at Albany, State University of New York, corresponding author), Angie Y Chung (University at Albany, State University of New York)
Year2024
Volume94
Issue2
Pages453-471
Publication date2024-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Inquiry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0245 • E-ISSN: 1475-682X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/soin.12561
OpenAlexW4384662214
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited47

Social and geopolitical disruptions triggered by the COVID-19 crisis have raised crucial questions about the shifting meaning of race, citizenship, and nationality for transborder migrants amidst receding globalization, hardening borders, and geopolitical tensions. The aim of this paper is to examine the ways in which Chinese international students have viewed and negotiated their ambiguous racial and ethnonational position between nations during the global pandemic. Drawing on 16 student interviews at one upstate New York campus between 2019 and 2021, we argue that Chinese international students have occupied a liminal space between nations that shapes their understanding of race and racism through a distinctly geopolitical lens. Double-edged exclusion and discrimination from both the US and China during the global pandemic have heightened their sense of social dislocation and withdrawal from nationalist politics in both countries. In the process, they have not so much surrendered the cosmopolitan ideals that motivated their migration but rather, reimagined them while maintaining a delicate balance between global cosmopolitan ideals and ethnonationalist loyalties. Our findings provide insights into the future political trajectory of Chinese transborder migrants amid tense US-China relations and help to explain the contradictions of diasporic Chinese worldviews on current affairs

China · Chinese americans · Cosmopolitanism · Ethnic group · Geopolitics · Globalization · Liminality · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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