Journey to Shanghai: The Effects of Rural-to-urban Migration and Social Class on Perceptions of Home

Abstract

The present article centers on the home, the perceptions of which are challenged, and modified by rural-to-urban migration dynamics and outcomes. The core research interest hereby presented pertains to the effects of migration and social advancement on individuals’ perceptions of home: whereas some identify their original rural home as their “home,” others manage to achieve a “shift” of the home after migration, by relocating their “home” from their original home in the village to their created home in the city. These two opposite perceptions about where the home of primary reference is located are not coincidental. Rather, the article presents a pattern that connects home shifting to upward mobility and social advancement: in fact, the shift in the location of the home owes to three major driving forces that are key in social mobility processes: career development, locus, and networks. The findings of this research, reached through the analysis of empirical qualitative data, provide practical insights to post-migratory class formation as well as upward mobility dynamics.