Migration and Social Aspirations: Chinese Cosmopolitanism in Wenzhou Region (China)

Abstract

This article explores what motivates the movements of Chinese migrants from China to Portugal. It presents an ethnographic account of social aspirations in Wenzhou, a port city located in South Zhejiang (Southeast China), where post-Mao economic prosperity, allied to the existence of networks of trade and migration, resulted in social and economic inequalities and great social pressure to become rich and successful. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Wenzhou and in Lisbon (Portugal) between 2008 and 2010, this paper argues that Wenzhou migratory projects are a result of modernity aspirations and desires for material modernization articulated with core Chinese values such as filial piety.

Keywords

• Chinese migration
• social aspirations
• Chinese cosmopolitanism
• Wenzhou