This thesis examines the recent emergence of Astronaut and Satellite family forms in
Vancouver, British Columbia. Evident in several cities around the Pacific Rim, these
transnational arrangements, among economic-class immigrants from Hong Kong and
Taiwan, involve one or both adult members of the nuclear family returning to the country
of origin to pursue a professional career or business. In the Astronaut arrangement, it is
usual for the woman to remain in Vancouver - taking charge of all domestic and
childcare tasks. In the Satellite situation, children are left without parental guidance for
most of the year. Dominant media and academic representations point to two contrasting
interpretations of these phenomena. Recently, academics have emphasised the financial
vulnerability of these assumed 'wealthy' immigrants. Migrants from Hong Kong and
Taiwan are understood to be "reluctant exiles," and the Astronaut situation reflects a
failure to find work in the new country. A second, more common portrayal conceives of
these migrants as part of a larger, "hypermobile" cosmopolitan elite, who utilise
migration as a strategy of economic and cultural accumulation. Particular forms of capital
are achievable at particular global sites; the Astronaut and Satellite arrangements
epitomise the placement of different family members in different locations to this end.
Through in-depth interviews with members of 42 such fragmented families residing in
Vancouver, I established the generally strategic nature of these circumstances.
Overwhelmingly, migration had been sought primarily for the education of the children,
and the transnational arrangement was planned before migration. I was interested also in
how the lone spouse and the Satellite children experienced their situation. A different
body of academic literature has emphasised the way in which migration negatively
impacts the female of the family, and also how the Chinese family remains significantly
patriarchal after migration. For the female participants, practical and emotional
difficulties were encountered during the first year of settlement - exacerbated by the loss
of both the spouse and old support networks in the new setting of Vancouver. Women
undertook all domestic tasks and commonly experienced feelings of boredom, loneliness
and fear. After a year, however, many women reported a sense of freedom, clearly linked
to the absence of the husband and their own agency in the creation of new support
networks and stable surroundings. The Satellite children presented an ambivalent picture
of freedom and aloneness. In the command of their daily lives and in the subversion of
parental control and expectations (for example, regarding their strategic acquisition of
'cultural capital') they demonstrated significant independence. Yet they had little control
over their placement in Vancouver. The negative implications of this family arrangement
for the emotional well-being of the children were clearly apparent, and school staff in
particular stressed the need to regard Satellite status as a social problem. The empirical
data challenge many assumptions concerning the flexible Chinese family in the
contemporary era of transnationalism and globalisation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11011 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Waters, Johanna L. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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