Transnational Social Networks and Negotiated Identities in Interactions Between Hong Kong and China

Abstract

This chapter explores transnational social networks in action as they are constituted and mobilized for practical activities. It considers the ways in which others can make claims on such networks and how such claims can be resisted or subverted. The chapter discusses the deal with issues of identities, as shared identities and claims of exclusion operate in the process of situated ethnicity. However, we are also critical of excessive attention to identity politics at the expense of other influences that the increasing prevalence of transnational social networks is producing. The chapter also discusses the nature of transnational social networks and their relationship to concepts of post-modernity. In the post-modern age of the late twentieth century, national boundaries are becoming less central for social analysis than they were in the past. The chapter focuses on network processes rather than the sociometry of network structure, and particularly upon networks-in-action.