Vietnamese migrant networks in Taiwan: the curse and boon of social capital

Abstract

ABSTRACTDrawing on ethnographic research on Vietnamese migrant workers in Taiwan, I seek to engage with and contribute to the scholarship on migrant networks and social capital. My research demonstrates that migrant networks are central to the social life of Vietnamese workers, offering not only a vital source of material and psychological support but also a platform where relationships are developed, sustained and contested. It reveals both productive and destructive potentials of social capital in situations where the migrant labourer becomes a disenfranchized underclass and their radius of trust is unsettled by physical displacement. Through this research I highlight the complexities and subjectivities in individual experiences of social capital and offer important insights into the various ways in which social networks are reinterpreted and reconfigured at the intersection of mobility, class and ethnicity within the context of Asia.