Migration, Emotion, and Digital Economies Book Launch
In this talk Dr. Zani will draw on her multi-sited ethnographic work in China and Taiwan, where she explores the mobilities of women who have moved from the countryside to the city in China and who re-migrate to Taiwan through marriage. This research looks at the ways Chinese migrant women in Taiwan cope with social, economic and familial vulnerability, by developing online gendered social networks and practices of digital entrepreneurship through the social media platform WeChat. Dr. Zani analyzes the practice of digital entrepreneurship, the ways it is performed, the commodities commercialized, and the commercial circuits identified by women across the Taiwan Strait. She will discuss how borders and trading restrictions are contested and transgressed though e-commerce; and how the markets explored are not only socially, but also emotionally constructed.
Broadly, this talk will illuminate how, in the digital age of migration, Chinese women鈥檚 migratory paths are growing more complex and are increasingly characterized by the use of digital platforms. Looking at the e-entrepreneurship produced by Chinese women in Taiwan, we will delve into the new digital, emotional, and commercial geographies of interconnection between China and Taiwan.
Speaker
Beatrice Zani
Dr. Beatrice Zani is a sociologist, and postdoctoral research fellow at McGill University in the Department of East-Asian studies. She is research associate at the European Research Centre on Contemporary Taiwan (ERCCT, Tuebingen University), and at TRIANGLE (ENS Lyon, France). She is also executive board member of the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) and of the network 鈥楳igration鈥� of the French Sociological Association. Her research explores Chinese women鈥檚 multiple mobilities between China and Taiwan, and the link between migration, emotion and ICT in the making of globalization. Her work has been recently awarded: the Mobility Prize by the Forum Mobile Lives; the Lyon 2 University Dissertation Award, and the Young Author Award by the journal Sociology of Work. She has recently published: 鈥楽hall WeChat? Switching between online and offline ethnography鈥� (Bulletin of Sociological Methodology, 2021)鈥�; 鈥楧igital Entrepreneurship. E-commerce among Chinese Marriage-Migrant Women in Taiwan鈥� (Journal of Chinese Overseas, 2021); 鈥楶attes de poulet, colis cach茅s, entrepreneuses connect茅es. Migration et entrepreneuriat digital entre Chine et Taiwan鈥� (Sociologie du travail, 2021) ; 鈥楥an the Subaltern Feel ? An ethnography of migration, subalternity and emotion鈥� (with L. Momesso, Emotion, Space and Society, 2021); 鈥榃eChat, We sell, we feel: Chinese migrant women鈥檚 emotional petit capitalism鈥� (International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2020), and Women Migrants in Southern China and in Taiwan. Mobilities, digital economies and emotions (Routledge, 2021).
This event is made possible thanks to the support of the 大象传媒's Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs and 大象传媒's David Lam Centre.
Date
March 2, 2022
