| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
A central theme in the literature on transnational migration is the embeddedness of such movement in social networks and the utilisation of social capital in facilitating mobility. This case study on overseas Chinese students and mainly non-Chinese foreign students studying at a top university in Taipei brings in the notions of cultural capital and city. It investigates the ways social networks shape the destination choices of these two groups of students, and how their patterns of adjustment in the host milieu and attachment to the host city are affected by the transnational migration network (and the lack of it), embodied cultural capital and different host imaginaries constructed by the Taiwan government. The results show that these two groups of international students differed in their reliance on transnational migration networks in making destination choices prior to migration. Furthermore, the different forms of social networks and the differential social and cultural capital embedded in their respective groups, along with the distinctive host images that were constructed by the Taiwan government to cater for these two groups, shaped their overseas experiences and attachment to the city of Taipei in distinctive ways.
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