Abstract
Migrants’ self-assessments refer to their perceptions of social mobility and positioning. These assessments are often ambivalent and counterintuitive for observers. To overcome contradictory first impressions, we propose a comprehensive approach to migrants’ self-assessments that goes beyond the opposition between objective and subjective social mobility and links the transnational context, various social spheres, actors’ migratory projects, and their reflexivity. The empirical materials in this article draw on two studies on Chinese migrants in France and confront the trajectories and viewpoints of undocumented migrants and international students. Beyond the differences between their experiences and their legal, economic, and social statuses in France and China, we highlight several common points: First, both groups considered migration a lever to improve their social status. Second, their evaluations link their regions of origin and destination as well as various social spheres. Third, in a transnational context, many factors at different scales influence migrants’ subjective self-assessments of the success or failure of their migration. The migrants’ assessments can vary according to their emphasis on professional, personal, or family trajectories, or on their choice of reference groups. They are shaped by the complexity of translations of status from one country to another and by rapid social transformation in China. Thus, many interviewees estimate that they are simultaneously in situations of social progression and regression.
Highlights
When we asked Mrs Yu, an ex-factory worker in China of 45 years who has been earning a living as a sex worker since she arrived in France, if she regrets going abroad, she answered negatively
Beyond the differences of legal, economic, and social status in China and in France, which empirically shape very different migration experiences, we argue that the comparison of skilled and unskilled workers as well as legal and illegal migrants’ trajectories and viewpoints is heuristic
After a discussion on the theoretical and methodological premises of our approach, we present the sociopolitical context of the new Chinese migrations to France
Summary
When we asked Mrs Yu, an ex-factory worker in China of 45 years who has been earning a living as a sex worker since she arrived in France, if she regrets going abroad, she answered negatively. Even if she is ashamed of this job, she said: If I had not gone abroad to earn money, I would not have been able to afford to send my daughter to university. Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 163–173 problem, and I have solved [it]. We conclude with the strengths and contributions of our approach, which illuminate the complex process of migrants’ assessment of their social mobility at the transnational scale
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