Intercultural capital and ambiguous loss in in-between space: a digital ethnography of Anglo-Sino academic families amid China’s transformation into the post-pandemic era

ABSTRACT

This study presents a digital ethnography of the Anglo-Chinese academic family community (ASAFC) amid China’s transformation into the post-pandemic era. The ASAFC members are men from Anglophone countries married to Chinese women. Thus, two American male authors and one Chinese male author observed WeChat group texts shared by 64 individuals from Anglophone countries between 16 November 2022, and 31 January 2023, and in turn, triangulated their field notes to analyse the experiences of the ASAFC. By underpinning the concepts of intercultural capital and ambiguous loss within the context of in-between space, this study promoted scholarly conversations about the life stories of the ASAFC during the rapid public policy paradigm shift and the peak time of the COVID-19 infection. Overall, this study discusses China’s transformation into the post-pandemic era, culminating with an overview of the most overarching challenges in recent history.

KEYWORDS:

• International academic mobility
• cultural capital
• social capital
• emotional capital
• ambiguous loss
• international marriage

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Texts directly retrieved from Statement from the U.S. Mission to China to U.S. Citizens. https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/zh/u-s-mission-china-statement-to-american-citizens-2/

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Wenzhou-Kean University Research Support Programs [IRSPK2023004]; The 2024 Soft Science Program supported by Science Technology Department of Zhejiang Province [2024C25042].