Children's Bodies Are Not Capital: Arduous Cross-Border Mobilities between Shenzhen and Hong Kong

Abstract

AbstractThis article foregrounds and unpacks the significance of education in the migration of children in contemporary Asia, drawing principally on research undertaken in Hong Kong and across the border with Mainland China (Shenzhen). Using the example of cross-boundary schooling, the authors explore the role played by children in emergent transnational topologies and reflects on the significance of this for understandings of “migration.” The authors argue that while children are harbingers of future migration and their mobilities appear, on the surface, to function seamlessly, in reality their experiences of mobility are very immediate and embodied: corporeal, emotional, and invariably arduous. The arduousness and corporality of everyday mobilities for education are rarely explored in the extant literature, and this article therefore attempts to highlight these important aspects of children's experiences.