Social Status Compensation through Transnational Practices: A comparative study of cultural remittances between two emigrant groups from South China

中国改革开放以来,海外华人移民通过文化馈赠这种跨国实践极大地促进了东南沿海地区的发展。但从我们的观察来看,不同类型的移民群体的跨国实践模式不尽相同。本文借鉴以往国际移民与跨国主义的研究,从社会学的角度提出“社会地位补偿”的范式,对分别来自广东五邑开平与海南文昌下辖两个镇的移民群体进行比较。通过分析,我们发现移民对于侨乡的文化馈赠不仅受到其个人出国前后社会地位变化的制约,而且还受多种客观因素的制约。特定的祖籍国和移居国在世界政治经济地理格局中位置的差异,移民群体在移居地的不同社会境遇以及侨乡的地方政府和地方社会均对文化馈赠产生不同程度的影响。上述这些宏观、中观与微观层面的因素交互作用,形成社会地位补偿的特殊机制,影响移民跨国实践中的文化馈赠。

Since China implements economic reforms and relaxes its policy toward diasporic communities，many overseas Chinese have made donations to their hometowns ( qiaoxiang in Chinese) for noneconomic purposes，notably for building schools，libraries， and ancestral shrines，which may be referred to as cultural remittances． This type of transnational practice has greatly promoted the sociocultural development in qiaoxiang． But from our observation，patterns of transnational practices differ among emigrant groups from different places of origin． Informed by prior research，we propose a conceptual framework of social status compensation and illustrate it by analyzing comparative data collected from fieldwork in two qiaoxiang — Kan Town in Guangdong Province and Wen Town in Hainan Province． We find that the gap in geopolitical positions between the sending and receiving countries reduces the transaction costs of remittances-sending，hence increasing the ability of emigrants to make donations for noneconomic purposes． We also find that emigrants’status inconsistency and their sense of belonging in receiving societies greatly influence cultural remittances- sending． In addition，local governments and qiaoxiang societies respond to emigrant transnational practices differently． These macro，meso，and micro factors interact to give rise to unique mechanisms of social status compensation，which serve to account for the variations in the quantity of cultural remittance in qiaoxiang．

黎相宜 周敏

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