Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
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...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
This thesis explores the Neoliberal policies by the Abe government regarding the attraction of foreign labor. The effects are analyzed on both the attraction of high-skilled as well as low-skilled...Show moreThis thesis explores the Neoliberal policies by the Abe government regarding the attraction of foreign labor. The effects are analyzed on both the attraction of high-skilled as well as low-skilled labor in supplementing the domestic workforce. Furthermore, it investigates the contrast to past policies and the effects in implementing foreign workers into the Japanese labor market.Show less
Social movements often encapsulate people from multiple different social groups. While the participant of a social movement can be identified simply as such—a participant—he or she still maintains...Show moreSocial movements often encapsulate people from multiple different social groups. While the participant of a social movement can be identified simply as such—a participant—he or she still maintains his or her own social group identity. In the South Korean case, the popular minjung movement of the 1980’s shows how social group division can be transcended by propagating an ultimate goal presented as a collective good. The minjung movement, which ultimately upheld democratization as its ultimate goal, encapsulated students and workers, among other social groups. In general, in order to make such a movement prosper, the movement’s participants should make an effort for mobilizing or politicizing the masses if they wish to influence the authoritarian ruling class. However, the fact that multiple social groups are participating presents problems. How exactly does one social group politicize the other within the same movement? Does one group take it upon itself to commandeer the movement, while other social groups are enticed to follow its lead? While members of the minjung movement shared the belief in a collective good—which in the 1980’s first and foremost was the democratization of South Korea and the abolishment of draconian rule—valiant efforts had to be made by both students and the working class in order to propagate the movement’s ideology. This thesis shows that the minjung movement did not simply uphold one leading social group that politicized all others. Instead, students and workers within the movement formed a relationship in which politicization flowed in both directions. Using Bert Klandermans’ mobilization theory, this thesis demonstrates that student activists employed action mobilization to recruit the working class, while the workers themselves unintentionally employed consensus mobilization to influence the students.Show less
