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ABSTRACT
Informed by Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of habitus and its relation with social class, this study explores the construction and negotiation of middle-class identity among a group of urban overseas returnees in China. Using ethnographic interviews and online observational data, the study found that participants built a compliant identity conforming to their parents’ expectations and metrics of being ‘middle-class’. However, they resisted their families’ positioning and the ideal class role images imposed upon them. In their workplace, participants negotiated this middle-class identity mainly by exhibiting professional qualities drawing upon their linguistic capital and new habitus gained through their overseas educational experiences. The privileged identity that the participants exhibited, however, was not without dilemmas and struggles due to their different set of habitus and linguistic practices. Finally, participants were found to project a new middle-class image with translanguaging practice and distinctive lifestyles by co-constructing a ‘returnees circle’.
KEYWORDS:
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.
Notes
1 WeChat is a widely used communication app originally developed for users in China and now used internationally. Its key features are instant messaging (both text and voice messages) and interactions in Moments (pengyouquan, 朋友圈).
2 The translanguaging practice considers language as transcending the prescribed boundaries between named languages and meaning-making resources as ‘always mobile and in contact, generating new grammars and meanings’ (Canagarajah Citation2017, 4).