The Realization of Social Value of Consumption in Transnational Spaces: Fuzhou immigrants in the United States

在借鉴跨国主义理论研究最新成果的基础上,本文试图建立“消费的社会价值兑现”的分析框架来解释国际移民跨越国境的两栖消费现象。我们通过移居美国的福州移民的个案,发现福州移民在其消费过程中,更多地通过在祖籍地的炫耀性、互惠性消费以及代理消费来完成其消费的社会价值兑现,并以此来实现社会地位的提升,也同时改善侨乡福利。福州移民的两栖消费作为个体的日常跨国实践,使移民个体得以充分利用不同民族国家在世界体系中发展水平的落差,实现其社会地位的最有效的表达,并在一定程度上减缓了跨国流动对侨乡与移居地社会的资源分配不平等的冲击,也间接地为移民适应移居地的社会逆境提供了帮助。

We use the concept of "social value of consumption" to explain the phenomenon of two-way transnational consumption. Our study of Fuzhou immigrants shows that migrants manage to realize the social value of consumption by conspicuous consumption, reciprocal consumption, and agent-assisted consumption in qiaoxiang (hometowns). This two-way consumption pattern is a type of everyday transnationalism, which enables international migrants to take advantage of uneven development between sending and receiving countries in the world system to maximize their expression of social status. Consequently, it contributes to individual status attainment and community welfare while reducing unequal distribution of resources caused by international migration and addressing adjustment problems for immigrants in the host society.

黎相宜 周敏

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