Yueya Ding

Negotiating Individual Space: an Inquiry into the Experiences of Chinese Return Migrants from Canada Yueya Ding

This book by Yueya Ding explores the underlying forces that influence the experience of return Chinese migrants from Canada. In particular, it examines how Chinese migrants negotiate individual space on their journey of transnational migration between China and Canada in four stages: pre- migration, during life in Canada, post-migration and returned life in China. An Individual Space Theory is constructed to help understand the transnational experience of Chinese migrants. This book has gone beyond the usual migration research which often applies a deficit model to view return migration as failure to integrate into the host society. Instead, it treats the experience of return Chinese migrants as part of their transnational migration journey negotiating between the self and the external social space. It embodies a process of self-discovery. The book contributes significantly to expand the extant knowledge of transnational migration. It demands a serious reading among researchers and policymakers who are interested in transnational migration in general and return migration in particular.