Shifting Boundaries of Belonging and New Migration Dynamics in Europe and China

Both China and Europe have in recent years witnessed the emergence of new migration dynamics. In China, hundreds of millions of migrant workers help to fuel China's economic growth with their labour whislt Europe has witnessed an increase in various new forms of migration by people from within and without seeking refuge, family-reunion or work.

In all societies significantly affected by migration, governments are rushing to adjust and implement rules and institutions so as to regulate these new forms of migration. This is accompanied by strong public discourse on how to name and characterise the newcomers and how to define who is a wanted migrant and who is unwanted.

This volume systematically explores the role that boundary making plays in creating a societal understanding of current migration dynamics and, by extension, in legitimising migration regimes. By comparing recent developments in Europe and China, it reveals insights on convergent social and political practices of boundary making under divergent conditions.

Ludger Pries is Professor of Sociology at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. He has previously published Cross-Border Migrant Organizations in Comparative Perspective (co-edited with Zeynep Sezgin).

1. Introduction: New Dynamics of Migration and Belonging; Ludger Pries and Robert Pauls
2. Beyond Assimilation: Shifting Boundaries of Belonging in France; Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, Monika Salzbrunn and Serge Weber
3. Changing Categories and the Bumpy Road to Recognition in Germany; Ludger Pries
4. The 'Others' in the Netherlands: Shifting Notions of Us and Them Since World War Two; Jeroen Doomernik
5. Shifting Categories of Belonging in the United Kingdom Census: Changing Definitions of Migration, Labour Market Access and Experience; Anne Green and Ronald Skeldon
6. Shifting Two-tiered Boundaries of Belonging: A Study of the Hukou System and Rural-urban Migration in China; Zhang Jijiao
7. The New Generation of Migrant Workers in the Labour Market in China; Zhang Xiaomin
8. Migration and the Shifting Boundaries of Belonging; Ludger Pries