Permanent Outsiders in China: American Migrants' Otherness in the Chinese Gaze

This book will situate migrating individuals' sense of Otherness in receiving countries front and center and systematically illustrate the configuration of Western migrants' Other-identity during their reversed migration from the West to China, which has become a new destination of international migration as a result of its rise to prominence in the global labor market. As a result, international migrants from Western countries, especially those who are perceived as desirable skilled migrants in mainland China, have become this country's main target in the global race for talent. In this context, this book will attend to American migrants on the Chinese mainland, who are perceived as the prototypical waiguoren in this region, as an illuminating case, and illustrate the configuration of their Other-identity, rising from their intercultural adaptation as the privileged but marginalized Other in an asymmetric power structure. Eventually, this book will attempt to reveal the condition and process of Chinese Othering of American migrants that does exist but is far less openly discussed in mainland China.