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Highly skilled Vietnamese migrants’ transnational occupations, belongings, and mobilities : a cross-national comparative ethnography in France and Canada Delaisse, Anne-Cécile
Abstract
While Vietnamese migration scholarship has traditionally focused on post-war refugees, this dissertation examines the understudied experiences of recent highly skilled migrants. It highlights their distinct transnational occupations, belongings and mobilities in Canada, France, and upon return to Vietnam, through four integrated manuscripts. This ethnography employs a cross-national comparative approach to explore migrants’ experiences in the transnational contexts between Canada or France and Vietnam. In the first manuscript, I argue that this methodological approach enhances theorization in occupational science by addressing the need to study occupation critically within its socio-political context and by challenging prevailing assumptions to develop theories that are more broadly applicable and/or specifically contextualized. Informed by a theoretical framework encompassing transnationalism, the mobilities paradigm, and transculturality, the findings are presented in the three remaining manuscripts. Firstly, I address how recent Vietnamese migrants develop and maintain belongings through daily occupations. This study highlights the dynamic nature of occupation and belonging, demonstrating that they need not be confined to a single location but can evolve through mobility. It also reveals that certain occupations can serve as benchmarks for belonging in (post-)colonial contexts, while individuals can use occupations agentively to negotiate and assert belonging, potentially resisting or reinforcing existing power dynamics. Secondly, the findings provide a concrete example of how migrants navigate the immigration systems of their receiving countries, which can restrict or enable mobility and delimit national belonging. I comparatively examine migrants’ interactions with Canada’s or France’s mobility regimes through administrative procedures, revealing how categories of ‘desirable migrants’ are constructed through these bureaucratic encounters, by the policies and bureaucrats but also by migrants themselves. Finally, with return migration emerging as a growing mobility pattern among highly skilled Vietnamese migrants, the findings explore return decision-making through migrants’ aspirations for ‘the good life.’ This approach acknowledges economic motivations while also considering social, lifestyle, and subjective aspects shaped by migrants’ intersecting identity markers and personal factors. Overall, this dissertation makes methodological, theoretical, and empirical contributions to the fields of occupational science, migration, and mobility studies by exploring the multifaceted experiences of highly skilled Vietnamese migrants in transnational settings.
Item Metadata
Title |
Highly skilled Vietnamese migrants’ transnational occupations, belongings, and mobilities : a cross-national comparative ethnography in France and Canada
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Creator | |
Supervisor | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
2024
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Description |
While Vietnamese migration scholarship has traditionally focused on post-war refugees, this dissertation examines the understudied experiences of recent highly skilled migrants. It highlights their distinct transnational occupations, belongings and mobilities in Canada, France, and upon return to Vietnam, through four integrated manuscripts.
This ethnography employs a cross-national comparative approach to explore migrants’ experiences in the transnational contexts between Canada or France and Vietnam. In the first manuscript, I argue that this methodological approach enhances theorization in occupational science by addressing the need to study occupation critically within its socio-political context and by challenging prevailing assumptions to develop theories that are more broadly applicable and/or specifically contextualized.
Informed by a theoretical framework encompassing transnationalism, the mobilities paradigm, and transculturality, the findings are presented in the three remaining manuscripts. Firstly, I address how recent Vietnamese migrants develop and maintain belongings through daily occupations. This study highlights the dynamic nature of occupation and belonging, demonstrating that they need not be confined to a single location but can evolve through mobility. It also reveals that certain occupations can serve as benchmarks for belonging in (post-)colonial contexts, while individuals can use occupations agentively to negotiate and assert belonging, potentially resisting or reinforcing existing power dynamics.
Secondly, the findings provide a concrete example of how migrants navigate the immigration systems of their receiving countries, which can restrict or enable mobility and delimit national belonging. I comparatively examine migrants’ interactions with Canada’s or France’s mobility regimes through administrative procedures, revealing how categories of ‘desirable migrants’ are constructed through these bureaucratic encounters, by the policies and bureaucrats but also by migrants themselves.
Finally, with return migration emerging as a growing mobility pattern among highly skilled Vietnamese migrants, the findings explore return decision-making through migrants’ aspirations for ‘the good life.’ This approach acknowledges economic motivations while also considering social, lifestyle, and subjective aspects shaped by migrants’ intersecting identity markers and personal factors.
Overall, this dissertation makes methodological, theoretical, and empirical contributions to the fields of occupational science, migration, and mobility studies by exploring the multifaceted experiences of highly skilled Vietnamese migrants in transnational settings.
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Genre | |
Type | |
Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2024-12-10
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0447446
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Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
2025-05
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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DSpace
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Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International