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ABSTRACT
Each ethnic enclave has its own idiosyncrasies, leading to disagreements as to the functions they serve for the migrants inhabiting them. However, three main functions may be identified across scholarly literature: shielding, economic and cultural. This article explores to what extent the spatial organization of the ethnic enclave is necessary for fulfilling these functions by taking the case of the Chinese international students in a Norwegian town. These students comprise a relatively cohesive group, and their conational social networks serve most of the same purposes of ethnic enclaves without the need for a separate neighbourhood. While most of their material needs are met, the students still express a lack of belonging, a need for a place that is ‘for us’, and they present an example of how an ethnic space is constructed without the need for a traditional ‘Chinatown’.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” 46–58.
2. For more on this topic, see Tseng, “Taiwanese Immigrant Business Development”, 35; and Chen, Getting Saved in America, 26. On the pages indicated, both works indicate how migrants’ cultural and social capital does not fully translate. The remainder of these works deal with how this is overcome.
3. Liu and Geron, “Changing Neighborhood”, 18–35; and Ang “Claiming Chinatown”, 336–50.
4. For an in-depth overview of the formation and operation of an ethnic enclave, see Portes and Bach, The Latin Journey, 1–432.
5. For more information on the ambiguous ways in which ethnic enclaves are perceived and how they are presented in the media, see Qadeer and Kumar, “Ethnic Enclaves and Social Cohesion”, 1–4.
6. Ethnic enclaves can take many forms. They can be commercial neighbourhoods with predominantly migrant-owned businesses, see Tseng, “Beyond ‘Little Taipei’”, 33–58. They can also serve the needs of tourists rather than residents, see Lin, The Power of Urban Ethnic Places, 14–21; Barabantseva, “Seeing Beyond an ‘Ethnic Enclave’”, 103–6. Still other ethnic enclaves can be low-income ghettos, see Walks and Bourne “Ghettos in Canadian cities?” 273–97; Cutler et al., “When are ghettos bad?” 759–74; and Punathil, “From ethnic enclave to ghetto,” 37–46.
7. For a brief overview of the various ways in which ethnic enclaves are defined, see Zhou and Logan, “Returns on Human Capital in Ethnic Enclaves,” 811–2.
8. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, there was an ongoing discussion as to the best way to define ethnic enclaves between Sander and Nee on one side and Portes and Jensen on the other. In simplified terms, Sanders and Nee tended to come down on the side of viewing enclaves in terms of their residents, whereas Portes and Jensen tended to see them in terms of businesses.See Sanders and Nee, “Limits of Ethnic Solidarity in the Enclave Economy,” 745–73; Sanders and Nee, “Problems in resolving the enclave economy debate”, 414–8; Portes and Jensen, “What’s an Ethnic Enclave?” 768–71; Portes and Jensen, “Disproving the Enclave Hypothesis,” 418–20; and For an example of an enclave defined thought business concentration, see Bohon, Latinos in ethnic enclaves, 1–194.
9. Many studies describe close social ties arising within enclaves, usually with the suggestion that they are created by habitation within the enclaves themselves. For examples, see McPherson et al., “Birds of a Feather,” 415–44; Vervoort et al., “The Ethnic Composition of the Neighbourhood and Ethnic Minorities’ Social Contacts,” 586–605; and Cao et al., “Predicting Chinese international students’ acculturation strategies,” 85–96.
10. For a widely used overview of migration theory and research, see Castles, de Haas and Miller, “Age of Migration,” 1–328.
11. Mellemstrand, “Kinesere i Norge studerer og jobber”; and Norwegian Centre for Research Data, “Database for statistikk om høgre utdanning.”
12. Norwegian Centre for Research Data, “Database for statistikk om høgre utdanning.”
13. Zhou, Chinatown, 1–304.
14. Sanders and Nee, “Limits of Ethnic Solidarity in the Enclave Economy,” 745–73; and Sanders and Nee, “Problems in resolving the enclave economy debate,” 414–8.
15. Portes and Jensen, “What’s an Ethnic Enclave?” 768–71; Portes and Jensen, “Disproving the Enclave Hypothesis,” 418–20; and Bohon, Latinos in ethnic enclaves, 1–194.
16. Waldringer, “The ethnic enclave debate revisited,“ 444–52; and Toussaint-Comeau, “Do Ethnic Enclaves and Networks Promote Immigrant Self-Employment,” 30–50.
17. Abrahamson, Urban Enclaves, 25–8.
18. For an in-depth analysis of the history, operation and consequences of purposefully all-white towns in the US, see Loewen Sundown Towns, 1–576. A large part of this work is dedicated to the ways in which white Americans drove and kept non-white people by violence and threats. For a more specific example of how such tactics were used against the Chinese in the US, see Jew, “Exploring New Frontiers in Chinese American History,” 77–90.
19. Guest’s, God in Chinatown deals with religious communities in New York’s Chinatown. For a description of how these communities can facilitate the Fuzhounese residents’ employment, see Guest, God in Chinatown, 3–49.
20. Waters, “Towards a Theory of Ethnic Identity and Migration,” 515–44; and Kim, “Migration and Conversion of Korean American Christians,” 190–208.
21. Loewen Sundown Towns, 1–576.
22. Wong et al., “Rural migrant workers in urban China,” 32–40; Sime and Fox, “Migrant Children, Social Capital and Access to Services Post Migration,” 524–34.
23. Pot et al., “The language barrier in migrant aging,” 1–19.
24. For an analysis of how stereotyping can impact the mental and physical health of ethnic minorities, see Lynam and Cowley, “Understanding marginalization,” 137–49.
25. For ethnographic material on the challenges faced by Muslim students because of alcohol-focused social events, see Mir, Muslim-American Women on Campus, 47–86. In addition, there are works on international students’ relations with host-nationals which devote some space to how international students’ aversion to host-national drinking cultures shuts them out from social events. For material from Australia, see Sawir et al., “Loneliness and International Students,” 171; For material from the UK, see Jones, “Cosmopolitanism and ‘Cliques’”, 423–4.
26. DeVerteuil, “Survive but not thrive?” 929–45.
27. Kumar et al., “Immigrant Arab Adolescecnts in Ethnic Enclaves,” 201–12.
28. Zhou, Contemporary Chinese America, 1–328.
29. e.g. Umbach and Wishnoff, “Strategic Self-Orientalism,” 214–38.
30. Portes and Rumbaut, Immigrant America, 1–496; Tseng, “Beyond ‘Little Taipei’,” 33–58; and Guest, God in Chinatown, 1–225.
31. For academic writing suggesting that ethnic enclaves improve migrants’ economic situation, see Wilson and Portes, “Immigrant Enclaves,” 295–319; Portes and Bach, The Latin Journey, 1–432; Zhou, “Beyond Ethnic Enclaves,” 228–51; Guest “God in Chinatown”; 1–225; Barabantseva, “Seeing beyond an ‘ethnic enclave’,” 99–115. For analyses dealing more specifically with self-employment, see, Zhou and Logan, “Returns on Human Capital in Ethnic Enclaves,” 809–20; Portes and Zhou, “Self-Employment and the Earnings of Immigrants,” 219–30; Clark and Drinkwater, “Pushed out or pulled in?” 603–28; Toussaint-Comeau, “Do Ethnic Enclaves,” 30–50; and Andersson and Hammarstedt, “Ethnic Enclaves,” 27–40.
32. Waldinger, Through the Eye of the Needle ; and Zhang and Xie, “Ethnic Enclaves.”
33. Andersson and Hammarstedt, “Ethnic Enclaves, Networks and Self-Employment,” 27–40.
34. Sanders and Nee, “Limits of Ethnic Solidarity in the Enclave Economy,“ 745–3; Bauer et al., “Enclaves, language, and the location choice of migrants,” 649–62; and Epstein and Gall.
35. Mouw and Chavez, “Occupational Linguistic Niches.”
36. For studies suggesting that enclaves facilitate a feeling of belonging, see Bauer et al., “Enclaves, language, and the location choice of migrants,” 649–62; Kumar et al., “Immigrant Arab Adolescecnts in Ethnic Enclaves,” 201–12. For a dissenting view, see Almeida et al., “Multilevel Analysis of Social Ties”, 745–59.
37. For an introduction to the ‘belongingness hypothesis’, see Baumeister and Leary, “The Need to Belong,” 497–529.
38. Qadeer and Kumar, “Ethnic Enclaves and Social Cohesion,” 1–17.
39. e.g. Viruell-Fuentes et al., “Contextualizing nativity status,” 586–609.
40. Again, this draws on the original conception of the belongingness hypothesis, see Baumeister and Leary, “The Need to Belong,” 497–529. For dissenting views, see Almeida et al., “Multilevel Analysis of Social Ties,” 745–59; Mossakowski and Zhang, “Social Support Buffer the Stress of Discrimination?” 273–95; and Mezuk et al., “Ethnic enclaves and risk of psychiatric disordersSweden.”
41. Schwartz et al., “Nativity and Years in the Receiving Culture,” 345–53.
42. e.g. Bochner et al., “Friendship Models of Overseas Students,” 277–94; Sam, “Satisfaction with Life among International Students,” 315–37; and Montgomery, Understanding the International Student Experience, 1–184.
43. Hazen and Alberts, “Visitors or Immigrants?”, 201-–16.
44. Bochner et al., “Friendship Models of Overseas Students,” 277–94; Pritchard and Skinner 2002; Lee and Rice 2007; Sakurai et al., “Building intercultural links,” 176–85; Hendrickson et al., “Analysis of friendship networks,” 281–94; Campbell, Promoting Intercultural Contact on Campus,” 375–96; and Bennet et al., “’I’d Say it’s Kind of Unique in a Way’,” 533–53.
45. Bochner et al., “Friendship Models of Overseas Students,” 277–94, Lee and Rice, “Welcome to America?”; 381–409; Sakurai et al., “Building intercultural links,” 176–85; Campbell, “Promoting Intercultural Contact on Campus,” 375–96; and Jones, “Cosmopolitanism and ‘Cliques’“, 420–37.
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Alexander Gamst Page
Alexander Gamst Page is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Teacher Education, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, where he obtained his PhD, MA and BA. His research interests are broad, but include the Chinese post-‘80s generation, identity construction among students, migration, modernisation, religious conversion and the effects of Chinese diglossia.