“做家”:一个技术移民群体的家庭策略与跨国实践

“Family-making”:Family Strategy and Transnational Practice of Chinese Immigrant Families

本文试图以"做家"来讨论移民家庭再造的过程和逻辑,展现流动的家庭如何在传统文化理想和跨国生活现实之间被塑造出来。移民家庭的实践建立在成员跨国移动的空间轴和生命历程的时间轴之上,表现为各种家庭关系被不断重组。本文以来自中国的半导体技术移民在新加坡的生活为例,考察了夫与妻、父与幼和子与老这三对基本关系在不同时空环境和外部条件下,如何影响人们的策略和行为,产生了哪些特殊的家庭形式与居住格局。

This paper uses'family-making'as a conceptual tool to discuss the process and logic of Chinese immigrants' family reconstruction in foreign lands and show how mobile families are formed out of traditional cultural ideals in connection with the reality of life. Characterized by horizontal movement across nations and the temporal axis of life process,immigrant families show constant reshuffling of internal relations. With Chinese immigrant families in the category of semi-conductor professional in Singapore as examples,this paper examines three basic relations,i.e.,the relations between husband and wife,between parent and offspring,and between the young and the elderly,and see how the change of temporal-spatial environments and external conditions impact their strategy and behaviors,and what specific family forms and living patterns have come about accordingly.