Performing everyday cosmopolitanism? Uneven encounters with diversity among first generation new Chinese migrants in New Zealand

Abstract

Cross-cultural living experiences may lead to the development of cosmopolitanism among people who are on the move. This article critically explores this proposition in relation to first generation Chinese migrants in New Zealand, focusing on, not only their opportunities but, more importantly, the barriers they encounter in terms of performing cosmopolitanism through an analysis of their everyday intercultural interactions. The key premise is that being able to engage in cosmopolitanism is not a given result of increasing levels of cross-border mobilities or intercultural interactions but occurs through, and relates to, social structures and power relations that individuals negotiate in different social settings. By drawing insights from ‘everyday cosmopolitanism’ and ‘contact zones’, this paper explores three factors that articulate the possibilities of becoming cosmopolitan: (a) everyday cosmopolitanism in contact zones; (b) the emotional dimension of encountering others; and (c) migration and family life challenges. In doing so the paper examines how the process of becoming cosmopolitan is entangled with migrants’ social-demographic characteristics, along with their individual self-perceptions, biographies, and personal relations with others. It highlights that cosmopolitanism is socially situated, subject to multiple pressures, and enacted within the uneven power relations of society. Moreover, it demonstrates that diversity encounters are inherently emotional and cannot be understood outside of the emotional dynamics from which they emerge.

Keywords

Everyday cosmopolitanism contact zones diversity uneven encounters emotional dissonance migration and family life first generation migrants Chinese New Zealand

Introduction

Some scholars have suggested that cross-cultural living experiences may lead to the development of cosmopolitanism among people who are on the move (Glick Schiller et al., 2011; Mau et al., 2007). This article critically explores this proposition in relation to first generation new Chinese migrants in New Zealand,¹ focusing on, not only their opportunities, but more importantly the barriers they encounter in terms of performing cosmopolitanism through an analysis of their everyday intercultural interactions. The key premise is that cosmopolitanism must be understood in relation to ‘social and personal imperatives’ that shape the contours of social encounters (Woodward and Skrbis, 2012: 133). The argument highlights that being able to perform everyday cosmopolitanism is not a given result of increasing levels of cross-border mobilities or intercultural interactions, but occurs through, and relates to, uneven social power relations and the particular biographies of individual migrants who seek to identify and adapt to new places.

In focussing on these relations, the concept of ‘contact zones’ is employed to indicate the range of social spaces where migrant individuals experience uneven access and abilities to interact with others and conduct everyday cosmopolitanism. Such places are the locus where differences are constantly challenged, encountered and (re)negotiated. Drawing on qualitative research with 35 first generation new Chinese migrants in New Zealand, this paper investigates how they interact with diversity and develop their social networks within contact zones infused with uneven social power relations. It draws attention to how migrants negotiate conflicts, difference and emotional dissonance arising from their everyday encounters with diversity. Firstly, this paper introduces the concepts of ‘everyday cosmopolitanism’ and ‘contact zones’; this is followed by brief discussion of recent migration to New Zealand and the methodology used in this study. Then the research findings are presented as three factors that articulate the possibilities for practicing cosmopolitanism: everyday cosmopolitan moments in contact zones; the emotional dimension of encountering others; migration and family life challenges. In doing so the paper examines how the process of becoming cosmopolitan is entangled with migrants’ social-demographic characteristics, along with their individual self-perceptions, biographies and personal relations with others. Moreover, it demonstrates that encounters with diversity are inherently emotional and cannot be understood without an appreciation of the emotional dynamics from which they emerge.

Everyday cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism has recently been revitalized across the social sciences and humanities, primarily as a means of addressing new forms of experience and sociability produced in an increasingly mobile and interconnected world (Glick Schiller et al., 2011; Wang and Collins, 2016b). Nevertheless, there is a danger for cosmopolitanism to become an abstracted utopian ideal and a discourse with no tangible or relevant meanings (Skrbis et al., 2004). Therefore, making a division between the normative–philosophical and the empirical–analytical, between the conceptualisations of cosmopolitanism as an idea or attitude (openness to difference and diversity) and as a lived everyday experience or practice is one of the most essential topics for scholarship on cosmopolitanism (Inglis, 2014). In this regard, Vertovec and Cohen (2002) make a useful distinction between cosmopolitan attitudes and practices that serve as the two major components of cosmopolitanism. First, cosmopolitanism, as an attitudinal or dispositional orientation, requires people to take an intellectual and aesthetic outlook on openness towards cultural and ethnic diversity. Second, after the development of cosmopolitan outlooks and attitudes, real cosmopolitans would still need to apply these attitudes to their daily lives in a number of social settings in order to partake in cosmopolitan practices.

In order to use cosmopolitanism as an analytical tool and theoretical framework, Woodward and Skrbis (2012) have argued that cosmopolitanism is a body of cultural practices which rests on a particular set of cultural competencies that are brought into play in culturally meaningful fields where the expression of cultural capital competencies makes sense to people. Combining this understanding with the work of Vertovec and Cohen (2002), this paper defines cosmopolitanism as a set of attitudes and practices characterized by openness to others and difference, utilized by ordinary individuals to encounter diversity, negotiate difference and build social relations in specific everyday social situations.

Woodward and Skrbis (2012) state that cosmopolitanism is not necessarily ‘good’ or ‘an ever-expanding frontier of the global community that people in all places and times increasingly adopt as if it were part of an evolutionary adaptation’ (133). In accord with their arguments, this paper maintains that cosmopolitanism is not an ideal type of behaviour, but a constantly negotiated framework of references and cultural competencies for migrant individuals to utilise with the aim of better dealing with difference and culturally different others. More attention needs to be paid to analysing at which moment(s) migrants have greater willingness or capacity to exhibit cosmopolitanism and engage with cultural others, when and where these occur, and what are the circumstances that provide for, or constrain, such activities. This will allow for a stronger theoretical platform from which migration scholars can explore the advantages, the ambivalence, the challenges and barriers generated from migrants ‘performing’ cosmopolitanism.

It has also been argued that cosmopolitanism is no longer a term reserved for the tastes and lifestyles of global elites (Moroşanu, 2013). Instead, various forms of ‘everyday’ cosmopolitanism are arguably produced in a growing diversity of workplaces, neighbourhoods and localities among those who populate them (Onyx et al., 2011; Wessendorf, 2010). Some scholars have begun to shift their focus to more grounded and down-to-earth cosmopolitan engagements, such as ‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’ (Werbner, 2006), ‘cosmopolitanism from below’ (Werbner, 2008) and ‘cosmopolitanism in practice’ (Nowicka and Rovisco, 2009). For example, Lamont and Aksartova’s (2002) research, explores the cosmopolitan attitudes and behaviours amongst working class citizens who do not fit the standard elitist image of a capital-loaded and highly intellectual cosmopolitan. These studies show that more focused research should be directed towards the down-to-earth cosmopolitan actions taken by ordinary people in everyday life.

While not always being able to encapsulate the lofty philosophical postures of world citizenship, ‘everyday cosmopolitanism’ draws attention to the more modest and grounded ways in which people from different backgrounds negotiate differences, build relations, and live together in diverse contexts (Bayat, 2008).This paper views everyday cosmopolitanism as interactions across cultural differences that seek to build social relations and overcome the distance that can be generated in such interactions at the level of everyday life. Critically, the paper makes a distinction between everyday cosmopolitanism – as active efforts to build relations with others – and the more literal ‘intercultural encounters’, which the research takes as including a wider range of everyday interactions: passing, tolerance, basic civility, rejection and exclusion. More importantly, this paper emphasizes that everyday cosmopolitanism is differently available to individuals with particular migration biographies and ‘social and personal imperatives’ (Woodward and Skrbis, 2012: 133).

Studying the ‘everyday’ offers a way of getting beyond generalized understandings of migration, since the ‘everyday’ speaks to the seemingly mundane, banal and unremarkable activities performed and experienced by migrants on a day-to-day basis (Ho and Hatfield, 2011). A small but growing body of literature on migration has paid particular attention to the small-scale ‘micro’ negotiations of everyday life that comprise human experiences (Wang and Collins, 2016b; Wessendorf, 2013, 2014). A focus on the ‘everyday’ in migration studies contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how migrants encounter differences and navigate through life, which informs not just research agendas but also policy and community programmes in order to better address migrants’ concerns and needs (Ho and Hatfield, 2011). Drawing on ‘everyday cosmopolitanism’ as a grounded approach, this paper seeks to investigate the lived experience of migrant individuals who experience difficulties in performing cosmopolitanism and who suffer from the uneven social power relations enmeshed within contact zones at the level of everyday.

Contact zones

This paper focuses on the everyday experiences of migrants encountering diversities and differences within so-called ‘contact zones’. Pratt (1992) developed the concept of contact zones in her work on colonial encounters and defined it as social spaces ‘where disparate cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of dominance and subordination’ (4). She stressed two major characteristics of contact zones: first, it is a social space filled with difference and interactions among people from different socio-cultural backgrounds; second, these interactions among different social actors are essentially characterised by uneven power relations.

One of the key defining characteristics of contact zones is the uneven power relations that shape and orient the intercultural encounters generated within them. Social actors do not just simply or randomly conduct encounters with people in open spaces, rather they make choices regarding whom they socialize with and how they conduct their social activities (Valentine, 2008). Admittedly, opportunities for encountering others are uneven, both in terms of access to certain kinds of contact zones, but also the different abilities individuals possess to interact with others or even negotiate differences when it comes to an intercultural social setting (Wang and Collins, 2016a). Such uneven power relations often oscillate around embodied characteristics of perceived ethnicity, age and social status and also include language competency and intercultural skills that are generally obtained through encountering others (Wang and Collins, 2016a). The lack of such abilities, or the awareness of these embodied differences, alters the possibilities of encountering others in contact zones and articulate with the opportunities for subsequent relationship network formations (Wang, 2016; Wang and Collins, 2016a).

Living in a host society, migrants generally have less capacity to shape the encounters that take place in contact zones because of differences in language, cultural familiarity and socializing capacities (Wang and Collins, 2016a). These differences are not evenly distributed however, and migrants with different socio-cultural backgrounds experience intercultural encounters differently and demonstrate different capacities and comforts in socializing. In the context of migration, contact zones, particularly those social spaces where ordinary encounters take place, are dominated by social and cultural norms of host societies (Valentine, 2008). As such, these places are particularly in need of active engagement with, and reflection on, intercultural interactions. However, migrants, particularly when they form part of cultural minorities, tend to have lower capacity to access these kinds of contact zones, which require a high level of familiarity with local socializing habits. Moreover, even if individuals manage to obtain entry to these social spaces, they generally encounter extra challenges to actively participate in intercultural encounters due to their migrant status or language barriers. That is to say, power inequalities can be amplified when it comes to migrants encountering culturally different others in the contact zones of their host society, not least because of the uneven power relationships between minority and majority populations.

It is important to realize that, when migrants interact with others in contact zones, this occurs through a set of encounters among different cultures, traditions, languages, customs, norms and socializing patterns (Yeoh and Willis, 2005). These encounters across difference can be very challenging due to a set of barriers that migrants face while trying to fit into the new cultural context of a host society. Accordingly, this article will identify and illustrate what these barriers are and how they articulate with the opportunities and competencies that first generation Chinese migrants have for engaging in everyday cosmopolitanism.

The research

In New Zealand, Asian immigration was strictly regulated until 1974 and the entry of Chinese citizens in particular was effectively banned for a long period of time (Spoonley and Bedford, 2012). Change started with the review of immigration policy in 1986 to adopt a comparatively liberal immigration policy based on personal merit rather than discrimination by nationality or ethnicity (Spoonley and Bedford, 2012). This significant policy change opened doors to increased immigration from Asia, especially from Southeast and East Asia. A large number of well-educated and skilled People’s Republic of China (PRC) migrants began to settle in New Zealand from the mid-1990s, making the PRC one of the top sources of New Zealand’s overall immigrant intake. Most of these new Chinese migrants were from relatively wealthy and well-established families in China. They entered as skilled or business migrants, with education and lifestyle being the predominant reasons for migration to New Zealand (Ip, 2011).

A significant body of scholarship has researched migrant groups from Hong Kong and Taiwan in New Zealand (Beal, 2001; Ho, 2002). In contrast, there has been a relatively smaller amount of research focusing on Chinese migrants from PRC. There have, however, been a few studies that have looked at English language proficiency, employment experiences and integration of new PRC Chinese migrants in New Zealand (Henderson, 2003; Henderson et al., 2001). Liu’s recent research (2014) has mainly focused on the highly mobile transnational new PRC Chinese migrants to New Zealand and has researched their increasingly fluid and ambivalent sense of home. Utilizing a transnational approach, Li et al. (2010) and Li and Chong (2012) have paid particular attention to the difficulties experienced by older PRC migrants in terms of achieving social well-being and rebuilding a sense of home in New Zealand. These migrants were aged over 60 and had migrated to New Zealand under the family reunion program. While also focusing on new PRC migrants (who remain an under-researched migrant group), this research explicitly draws attention to those first generation migrants who have migrated as skilled or business migrants (aged generally between 40 and 60) and who have been living in New Zealand long-term after migration. Moreover, this paper aims to unpack a largely ignored aspect of research – that is, the opportunities and barriers that these particular migrants encounter as they negotiate the complex and power-laden social fields they inhabit in New Zealand.

Data for this study comes from 35 in-depth interviews lasting approximately 90 minutes each and conducted from October 2013 to March 2014. Most interviews were conducted in Auckland, in person, but three participants who lived or worked outside of Auckland (two in Hamilton and one in Wellington) were interviewed via Skype (an online audio-visual communication software package). Participants were aged between 40 and 60 years old at the time of participation with an average age of 46. They were all born in China and were either Permanent Residents or New Zealand Citizens. Participants are first generation Chinese migrants who moved to New Zealand in their 20s or 30s. They are well-educated (holding at least a Bachelor’s degree) and are engaged in a wide range of occupations (e.g. lawyer, teacher, bus driver, nurse). Most interviewees indicated that they could engage in basic conversational English, but continued socialization was difficult as their understanding of English was limited compared to native English speakers. In comparison to 1.5 generation Chinese migrants,² they tend to be more connected to China, Chinese culture and the Chinese community in New Zealand. Consequently, most participants preferred to be interviewed in Mandarin Chinese and the interview data were transcribed into English prior to analysis by the researcher.

Interviewees were asked to provide everyday examples of interacting with others from different backgrounds and within different contact zones, such as home, neighbourhood and workplace. Interview questions were also designed to reveal the ethnic diversity of the various kinds of relationship networks they had developed in different social settings. Their sense of belonging towards both homeland and host country was also of interest. The interview narratives, while varied across participant narratives, were dominated by discussion of interactions between Chinese and European New Zealanders (hereafter ‘Pākehā’³). From one perspective, this bifocal view of a thoroughly multicultural country might seem at odds with an emphasis on cosmopolitanism, yet it also reflects important situated dimensions of Chinese migration to New Zealand.

There are several reasons behind this rather narrow socializing experience. Firstly, the recent migration of Chinese to New Zealand is often shaped around imaginations of the ‘cosmopolitan West’ (Salazar, 2011) and fantasies of pursuing a global lifestyle characterized by ‘whiteness’ and life in ‘white’ society. Accordingly, these Chinese migrants consider Pākehā the ‘real hosts’ which leads to a valorization of relationships with Pākehā. Secondly, due to the wider dominance of Pākehā social-cultural norms, building relationship networks with them is seen as not only unavoidable but also indispensable in terms of financially and socially succeeding in New Zealand. Thirdly, many Chinese migrants tend to play down their social interactions with Māori and Pacific peoples who tend to occupy lower socio-economic positions and live in different neighbourhoods, especially in Auckland (Johnston et al., 2011).Most interviewees said they had little interaction with Māori in their daily lives, captured bluntly by one respondent: ‘I just can’t see that many Māori people where I socialize most of the time’. The problematic portrayal of Māori in Chinese media sources also contributes to the formation of new Chinese migrants’ negative perceptions towards Māori (Liu, 2009). In addition, the tension of Māori-Chinese relations seems to be amplified by the popular Māori perception that the new wave of Chinese immigration could compromise Māori’s efforts to reassert their mana (prestige) and tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty), and potentially dilute Māori culture (Ip, 2003; Liu, 2009). Moreover, most participants consider other migrant groups (e.g. Koreans, Indians, Filipino) ‘just the same’ as themselves, which reinforces the centrality of Pākehā in their social lives. Consequently, most interviewees talked mainly about their encounters with Pākehā when they were asked about their social activities beyond the Chinese community. The following sections will focus primarily on those narratives with Chinese and Pākehā and examine the opportunities and barriers for becoming cosmopolitan and developing relationship networks within different contact zones.

Everyday cosmopolitanism in contact zones

It has been argued that everyday intercultural encounters can provide opportunities for individuals to feel comfortable in unfamiliar settings, build relationship networks with culturally different others and potentially cultivate their cosmopolitan orientations (Wise, 2005). Eddie (34; 40; M; Auckland⁴), for example, commented on the way in which quotidian intercultural interactions with his neighbours encouraged his own orientation towards everyday cosmopolitanism:

Most of the time, we don’t really know how to talk to our neighbors, since our English is really bad. But there was one time, our neighbor, an old Kiwi couple, invited us to their backyard and gave us some feijoa from their trees. We didn’t talk much but we felt that was very nice. My wife and I bought some toys for their grandson and we also made dumplings to give to them. After that, every holiday, no matter Chinese ones or Kiwi ones, we always send some presents to them. They give us some dessert from time to time. We always feel we are like outsiders here as Chinese migrants, so we are really grateful for their kindness and acceptance. (Translated)

Eddie’s example shows that ‘intercultural neighborly care’ (Wise, 2005: 179) has the potential to help people from different cultural backgrounds overcome difference and build relations with others. Although intercultural practices like exchanging food and presents are not grand gestures, they can exert positive transformations over the way people perceive difference (Valentine and Sadgrove, 2014) and thus generate a cosmopolitan sentiment among people. It is clear that meaningful everyday interactions situated in the contact zone of neighbourhood can provide migrants like Eddie and his wife with ‘moments of micro-hope’ (Wise, 2005) and a sense of home in an otherwise unfamiliar place. Similar to Eddie, another interviewee Ella (35; 42; F; Auckland), described some positive and hopeful moments in her everyday interactions with both strangers and colleagues:

Outside my family life, there are generally two favorite parts in my day. One is when I take the bus to work, the bus driver always give me a big smile and wish me a good day. Another part is when I eat lunch at work. I always eat with some colleagues. We all bring our lunch boxes. I sometimes bring extra Chinese stir-fry vegetable for my colleagues to share. After a while, my Kiwi colleagues started to bring sandwiches for me. And somehow, our lunch has gradually become a potluck. It is really fun. I don’t have many other Kiwi friends or non-Chinese friends. So I really cherish the lunch time. I also invited some of colleagues over for BBQ during weekends. I really start to feel I am being accepted and I feel I am just like anyone else living in this country.

Ella’s narrative indicates that momentary warmness and bonding at the level of everyday matters in terms of nurturing the emergence of long-term relationships among people who are of different cultural backgrounds but live in shared contact zones filled with diversity. A bus driver giving her big smile and her colleagues making her sandwiches are ordinary behaviours, but they are significant to Ella since it is a starting point for her to begin to feel being accepted and treated equally. These seemingly trivial and quotidian moments redefine and strengthen her sense of belonging to New Zealand as a migrant, which ultimately promotes the opportunities for her to build intercultural relationship networks. Ella’s specific experiences, while not shared by many interviewees, demonstrate that ‘gestures of care and recognition, however fleeting, can create a feeling of connection’ to place (Wise, 2005: 182). The two quotes above show that meaningful and hopeful intercultural encounters can facilitate otherwise difficult interactions across difference and encourage a wider range of cosmopolitan engagements in migrants’ daily lives.

It has been argued that people with transnational living experiences and intercultural social relations are more likely to be able to negotiate cultural difference and socialize with culturally different others (Mau et al., 2007). However, migrant mobilities do not necessarily guarantee the emergence or development of intercultural engagement since it can also result in ethnic-parochial sensibilities (Wang, 2016; Wang and Collins, 2016a). Due to language barriers, low intercultural familiarity and lower social-economic status, most interviewees in this research expressed their struggle in terms of socializing with culturally different others in various kinds of contact zones. Thus, the next two sections explore the barriers for these migrants performing everyday cosmopolitanism from two perspectives: (a) the emotional dimension; and (b) migration and family life.

The emotional dimension

It is a contention of this paper that opportunities for encountering diversity occur within contact zones inculcated with uneven power relationships, especially between majority and minority populations. As a sizable, but still minority, population in New Zealand, Chinese migrants generally have less capacity to navigate through difference in contact zones due to disadvantages in language, cultural familiarity and socializing capacities. These uneven social power relations also shape the emotional dynamics involved in encountering others and manifest in particular barriers for social interaction and eventually undermine the ability of engaging in everyday cosmopolitanism. This paper has captured two emotional barriers: (a) the strong sense of comfort gained from socializing with Chinese people; and (b) the ‘emotional dissonance’ (Middleton, 1989: 189) generated from interacting with cultural others; predominantly this is in relation to Pākehā.

Many participants in this research have developed a very tight Chinese social network, even going so far as to suggest they are living within a ‘miniature China’ in New Zealand. Most of the participants consider the Chinese community in New Zealand their ‘default’ group (Butcher, 2010), where they feel belonging and comfort. Over time, while living in New Zealand, a strong sense of rootedness towards China, Chinese culture and people has been reinforced. As Ashley (28; 37; F; Auckland) comments:

We have lived in New Zealand for almost 10 years. Most of our friends are Chinese. We don’t interact with Pākehā unless we have to. Hanging out with Chinese is just easier and more comfortable. You know, you just feel at ease. You don’t need to worry about what you need to say, or feel uncertain of the things you should or should not do. Plus, having a tight Chinese network here is important for us to settle down. It has helped us to find jobs, to feel connected with society. We can actually do everything in a Chinese environment, like shopping, eating and socializing. The thing is, we all know what it feels like to be a migrant, especially to be a non-white migrant. We just understand each other. (Translated)

The narrative of Ashley is indicative of the wider sentiments of interviewees who expressed their sense of comfort and affinity from interaction with Chinese people. Due to shared cultural meanings and rituals, most interviewees, including Ashley, stated their strong preference for socializing with the Chinese community in New Zealand. This shared Chinese rootedness produces mutual understanding and common knowledge in terms of how to start a conversation and how to deepen friendship. At the same time, the Chinese network plays an important role for Ashley in settling down and securing a position in New Zealand. Moreover, the experiences of living in New Zealand as non-white migrants enable them to understand each other better and thus further strengthen their bonding and closeness. Similar to Ashley, many other interviewees said socializing with Chinese people has made their daily life easier. This can concurrently reduce their initiative to build intercultural relationship networks with non-Chinese and therefore limits their engagement in everyday cosmopolitanism.

In contrast, almost all the interviewees suggested that they experience a sense of distance with Pākehā. They claimed that they have very few social interactions with Pākehā, unless at work or out of pragmatic concerns, since most of the time they suffer from feelings of discomfort from such interactions. As a result, this leaves only emotional dissonance when approaching Pākehā, which eventually diminishes their willingness and capacity of conducting cosmopolitanism in their everyday life. As another interviewee Eric (36; 50; M; Hamilton) states:

They are just so different from us. Interacting with Pākehā makes me feel awkward and anxious. I don’t know why. I guess it is the language and culture. I actually tried a few times to talk to my Pākehā colleagues, but you know the conversation just doesn’t flow. Since we have different values and different lifestyles, and I feel uncertain about what kind of topics I should choose to start a conversation. Plus, I know some white people don’t want to interact with Chinese. I don’t want to go out of my way to approach them. But to be honest, not being able to socialize with them makes us feel less belong to New Zealand. (Translated)

The way Eric feels about interacting with Pākehā is representative of experiences shared by many of the interviewees. Here, we see, it is feelings of uncertainty, awkwardness and discomfort that have disrupted Eric’s willingness for interactions with his Pākehā colleagues. These negative feelings result from, and are further aggravated by, language barriers and a lack of familiarity towards local socializing norms, a feeling expressed by most first generation interviewees. Moreover, similar to Eric, the inability of many interviewees to build networks with Pākehā within contact zones in daily life prevents development of a sense of home in New Zealand, which further enlarges the social barrier between them and Pākehā. In this situation, it is most likely that they prefer to interact with their co-ethnic members who provide them with more comfort and ease rather than making extra efforts to build relations across difference. Moreover, the way these migrants feel about interacting with Pākehā, including feelings of inferiority and anxiety, are not only shaped by the fundamental social power imbalance that exists between minority and majority populations, but also relate to how they perceive their non-white migrant status and their difference from Pākehā – the ‘white’ New Zealanders.

The two examples above demonstrate that positive emotions generated in social interaction create stronger ties, while negative emotions of frustration and confusion created by unpleasant cultural difference generate weaker ties (Lawler, 2001). Apparently, for the first generation Chinese migrants participating in this research, the sense of anxiety, uncertainty and unpleasantness that is regularly experienced while socializing with Pākehā can intensify the power inequalities between these Chinese migrants and local Pākehā during the socializing process in the many contact zones experienced daily (e.g. workplaces and neighbourhoods). On the contrary, the Chinese community is a contact zone where these first generation migrants feel they have equal access to social capital and identity capital compared with other social actors. It is a social field where they do not need to confront or overcome uneven power relations with Pākehā, who are both the largest and dominant social-cultural group in New Zealand. Thus, it is the emotional affinity with Chinese and emotional dissonance with Pākehā that simultaneously works to withdraw these migrants into their comfort zones and thus disrupt potential cosmopolitan engagements.

Migration and family life

Apart from the emotional barriers discussed above, barriers to performing cosmopolitanism are also generated through stress, difficulties and challenges that emerge for migrant families living in a transnational and cross-cultural setting. Most new Chinese migrants in this research had, at least, middle-class status in China and in some instances would be viewed as wealthy and resourceful. Nevertheless, migration can be a costly and risky exercise, particularly where class maintenance is challenged in the host society. According to the 2013 New Zealand Census, Chinese people in New Zealand have a much lower median income (16,000 NZD) than the New Zealand national average (30,000 NZD). Statistics have shown that the percentage of Chinese who are employed full-time and those who are employed part-time are lower than the national average and their unemployment rate is higher (Statistics New Zealand, 2013). In line with the research of Zhou (2009), many interviewees in this research suggested that it was difficult to engage in social life while struggling to maintain class and financial status as new migrants. Financial difficulties limited both social activities and lifestyle, demanding a focus on the pragmatics of working and everyday life.

The following narrative by Mrs Lin (35; 46; F; Auckland) recounts the living difficulties of her family after migrating to New Zealand and her inability to engage in a wider social life:

As a migrant family, we have a big financial burden. When you open your eyes in the morning, you see the mortgage. As Chinese, we don’t do overdraft. We have extra obligation of taking care of my parents who have moved to New Zealand. Compared to the local people, it is much more difficult for my husband and I to find decent jobs and both of us need to make much more extra effort to do well. It is so hard for us to even think about socializing or having a family holiday. We just want to focus on our family to improve our financial situation. People of my generation here see families as an absolute priority. We don’t want to be looked down upon as second class citizens, so we need to work really hard. (Translated)

Motivated by an imagination towards the cosmopolitan west, Mrs Lin’s family migrated to New Zealand to achieve their mobility aspirations and obtain the ideal lifestyle they had always desired. However, similar to many other Chinese migrant families, Mrs Lin’s family suffered downward social mobility and had difficulty juggling work and filial piety as well as household responsibilities. Therefore, as a migrant family, the success they pursued through taking on migration to the West has been heavily disrupted by their class status downgrading – from middle class in China to a self-perception as ‘second class citizens’ in New Zealand. Family life changes (taking care of parents, overwhelming financial pressure, employment issues) since migration have made it seem unrealistic for Mrs Lin and her husband to have a social life or integrate a local lifestyle into their everyday lives. Mrs Lin’s narrative clearly shows that a set of migrant-family-specific problems have generated difficulties in terms of reaching beyond their family life or comfort zones to socialize with locals, causing a low level of interest in and energy for performing cosmopolitanism. Another interviewee Mona (37; 47; F; Auckland) also suggested that she had found it very challenging to enjoy being sociable while feeling overwhelmed with the realities of her everyday migrant life:

Almost all my friends are Chinese. It is just easy for me to talk to Chinese people. Even if I want to make friends with the locals, I can’t. I can’t speak English well, so what can I do? I don’t have time to learn English, I need to go to my grocery store every single day, since the whole family needs money, and I have to cook and take care of my whole family when I finally have some free time. I am running my grocery store almost 365 days a year. I just don’t have time to make new friends or participate in any social activities. I don’t know my neighbors. This is just the way here, right? You don’t want to disturb your neighbors. Everything and everybody is just so quiet, which is so different from China. (Translated)

Mona’s narrative points to some of the challenges involved in building relationships with others. Particularly notable here are immediate and practical concerns like overcoming language barriers, since her life has always been occupied by busy work at her grocery store and she invested all her spare time in her family. Similar to Mona, many first generation interviewees suggested that they wouldn’t bother to invest much energy or time to go out of their way to socialize with non-Chinese when they are already overwhelmed by migrant-family obligations, financial pressure, language barriers and low intercultural competency. What they mainly aim for in New Zealand is just to ‘get by’ for themselves since they have pinned all their hopes on their children to succeed in New Zealand. Her reduced social life is also influenced by her perception of New Zealand as a ‘quiet’ and ‘non-social’ society and her uncertainty about how social relations unfold in this context.

In general, Asian migrants in New Zealand are more likely than other groups to be discriminated against in institutional settings, especially in the labour market (Spoonley and Bedford, 2012). Due to the disadvantages associated with their migrant status, many first generation new Chinese migrants tend to face formidable barriers to employment opportunities in New Zealand and suffer from a high degree of mismatch in their age–education profile (Ho, 2015). In this research, many first generation interviewees, like Mona and Mrs Lin, described the challenges they faced in terms of maintaining a satisfactory economic situation for the whole family in New Zealand. Subsequently, these financial struggles serve only to amplify the uneven encounters and intensify the distinction felt in contact zones between themselves and non-Chinese. A common response to the potentially challenging and confronting cross-cultural interactions necessary in public spaces is a retreat into the private contact zone of family life. Many interviewees have ‘[shrunk] to the four walls of their home’ (Wise, 2005: 177), since home is their primary contact zone where they can obtain a sense of security and be far away from feelings of estrangement. It should be noted that an inward focus on the home, as the primary contact zone, can only alleviate emotional dissonance in a temporary sense, and is likely to amplify their feelings of isolation and estrangement long term. Over time, Chinese migrants with such experiences tend not to approach or build social networks with culturally different others and eventually their ability and desire towards conducting everyday cosmopolitanism becomes greatly diminished.

Concluding thoughts

Drawing on qualitative research with 35 first generation Chinese migrants in New Zealand, this paper has sought to unpack the opportunities, barriers and dynamic uneven power relationships tied up in the process of performing everyday cosmopolitanism. The paper has presented how everyday hopeful intercultural encounters can transform people’s perception of difference and foster smooth interactions across difference, which potentially encourage migrants to engage in everyday cosmopolitan sociabilities. Some interviewees displayed their capacities of performing cosmopolitanism with culturally different others in everyday contact zones, such as workplaces, neighbourhoods and so on. Although their cosmopolitan engagements appear momentary or trivial, they play an important role in developing familiarization with people from different cultural backgrounds and normalizing exchanges in cross-cultural contexts (Wessendorf, 2013).

However, as visible minorities, the first generation Chinese migrants in this research are positioned in a socially disadvantaged place within the culturally dominant Pākehā society. The most common theme expressed by the research participants was their struggle to build cross-cultural relationship networks. Indeed, due to limited English language proficiency and relatively low intercultural familiarity, most participants experience various kinds of difficulties and emotional struggles as they attempt to conduct everyday cosmopolitanism and socialize with cultural others. In this regard, the paper has identified and described two major emotional barriers that undermine willingness and ability to become ‘cosmopolitan’. These were: feelings of comfort from socializing with the Chinese community, and feelings of emotional dissonance in interacting with Pākehā.

As for these first generation migrants, Chinese community in New Zealand has been transformed into a social space where they feel at home and belong, due to shared or familiar languages, cultural norms and socializing habits. The Chinese community is considered as a ‘domesticated contact zone’ (Wang and Collins, 2016a) for these migrants who find it emotionally challenging and stressful to engage in cross-cultural interactions beyond established comfort zones. Having developed strong initiatives towards building a strong Chinese network, these Chinese migrants experienced a set of transformations in their daily life – their emotional attachments towards Chinese culture, people and languages having been strengthened while their sense of distance towards culturally different others has become stronger. Feelings of emotional dissonance from interacting with Pākehā can also be amplified by their affinity towards Chinese people. Most interviewees find it very challenging to overcome moments of emotional dissonance and engage in everyday cosmopolitanism since it requires both high intercultural competency and investment of substantial emotional work. Consequently, a reduced self-confidence and fear of frustrating encounters with cultural others, especially with Pākehā, has caused a withdrawal into comfort zones and consequently reinforces its persistence. This disrupts their opportunities for building intercultural relationships and performing everyday cosmopolitanism in cross-cultural settings.

Engagements with cosmopolitanism for first generation Chinese migrants have also been undermined by a set of migrant-family-specific stressors, limitations and predicaments. Due to the disadvantages associated with their migrant status, many first generation Chinese migrants have faced significant labour market unemployment, underemployment and deskilling due to less recognized qualifications and language inadequacy (Ip, 2006). The desire for maintaining decent class and financial status pushes migrants to work more strenuously while exhausting their potential for a life outside of these financial obligations. Many of the interviewees reported feeling so pressured from juggling work and household responsibilities that there is little remaining time or energy for socializing. Reaching beyond their family life or comfort zones to socialize with locals was seen as impractical, even if it was desired, leading to a low level of motivation and opportunity for integrating local lifestyles into their everyday lives. As a result, the participants of this study seemed to have retreated to domestic spaces and more culturally familiar contact zones. The inevitable outcome seems to be a diminishing desire or need to conduct everyday cosmopolitanism and build significant cross-cultural social networks.

Empirically situated in a context of increasing ethnic diversity in New Zealand, particularly in Auckland, its largest metropolitan region, this paper makes three important contributions to the research of migrants’ everyday experiences and the practice of cosmopolitanism. Firstly, it has highlighted the social situatedness of performing everyday cosmopolitanism and revealed experiences of uneven social power relations that characterize encounters with diversity in contact zones. It has demonstrated that exposure to cultural diversity does not automatically lead to the embracing of difference. Developing cosmopolitan aspirations and utilizing them in everyday encounters for migrants does not come easily – migrants encounter a set of barriers as they try to fit in and negotiate difference in the host society. Moreover, this article has identified some of the key barriers faced by first generation Chinese migrants in terms of conducting cosmopolitanism and building intercultural relations, and will hopefully stimulate further discussion on the social integration process experienced by first generation Asian migrants in New Zealand and elsewhere. Secondly, this research has revealed that, apart from migrant family life pressure, emotional dissonance generated from encountering culturally different others is another reason for the failure to integrate and engage in a cross-cultural social life. In this regard, the paper speaks to the literature on emotions in the context of migration. It highlights the importance of paying attention to the emotional dimension of migrant mobilities and cosmopolitanism. Finally, as a product of classical European thought, the idea of cosmopolitanism has been traditionally defined, approached and utilized within the confines of Eurocentrism (Beck and Grande, 2007). Taking new Chinese migrants to New Zealand as an example, this paper has extended the literature on cosmopolitanism beyond a Eurocentric framework, and has identified the emergence of cosmopolitanism outside the domain of Western middle-class groups.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: A scholarship (No. 201206220081) provided by China Scholarship Council.

Notes

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