Breaks in Motion: Understanding Self Loss and Self-making of recent Chinese  Migrant-workers in the catering industry in the Netherlands.

This research sees the act of "going abroad for work" from two perspectives. One is leaving home and then conducting a cross-cultural life. The other is the expansion or adjustment of a career trajectory. This research examines how recent Chinese migrant workers cope with their overseas life when working in the catering industry in the Netherlands. By doing so, I have tried to understand what is the “social world” of my participants and how they interact with it. During 3 months of fieldwork, I talked with 8 participants and closely yet remotely studied social media content from this group. Our online conversations were based on getting along even virtually. The outcome comprises a written text and a film. The text discusses how these migrant workers engaged with labor and explores how the self was lost and rebuilt. As a trajectory pursuing success, and through daily practices in break times, I gradually gained insight in these migrant workers’ migration journey and witnessed their...Show moreThis research sees the act of "going abroad for work" from two perspectives. One is leaving home and then conducting a cross-cultural life. The other is the expansion or adjustment of a career trajectory. This research examines how recent Chinese migrant workers cope with their overseas life when working in the catering industry in the Netherlands. By doing so, I have tried to understand what is the “social world” of my participants and how they interact with it. During 3 months of fieldwork, I talked with 8 participants and closely yet remotely studied social media content from this group. Our online conversations were based on getting along even virtually. The outcome comprises a written text and a film. The text discusses how these migrant workers engaged with labor and explores how the self was lost and rebuilt. As a trajectory pursuing success, and through daily practices in break times, I gradually gained insight in these migrant workers’ migration journey and witnessed their awareness and sacrifice of self. Sacrificing leisure life and prioritizing work, men I engaged with, can hardly think of their own feelings and needs or reflect on who they are. Yet their practice and narration indicated s certain expectation on self-presentation. The film portrays narratives of “labor migration” from several perspectives as a polyphonous testimony. Overall, the key findings are that for recent Chinese migrant workers who come to the Netherlands and work in the catering industry, the act of migration and adjusting to cross-cultural life are reported to be experienced as a "normal" process: It is experienced as natural that one needs to adjust to different coworkers and to the new work environment. As it is for money that they came overseas, they perceive it as normal to bear difficulties. Rather than entering in a process of trans-national transition and adjustment as I imagined, their journeys can be seen as a continued precarious yet independent career trajectory that illustrates how they, as labor migrants, do not relate more than necessary with their new environment. At the same time, these labor migrants seek and create breathing space for themselves in their daily break-times, and single free weekday, to maintain a sense of self. Also, bearing the uncomfortable, their tendency is to normalize it, and tend to talk about the self in a positive and independent way, together composing a sense of self.Show less

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Breaks in Motion: Understanding Self Loss and Self-making of recent Chinese Migrant-workers in the catering industry in the Netherlands.