Unravelling Ambivalent Mobilities: The Social Memory, Bicultural Identity and Livelihood Strategies of Young Dam Migrants in Guangdong

The Three Gorges Dam (TGD) project (1994-2009) in Chongqing is well known for both its scale and the controversy surrounding its implementation. The TGD is the world’s tallest gravity dam, with the greatest hydropower production. However, its construction inundated 25,900 hectares of cultivated land, destroying historical relics and displacing 1,500 enterprises and 1.3 million people. As the region adjacent to the reservoir was barely able to sustain its existing population, let alone accept incomers, 125,000 of the migrants were relocated to other provinces/cities. The proposed study will investigate the migration experiences of a sample drawn from approximately 10,000 migrants from poor villages in inland Chongqing who resettled in coastal Guangdong between 2000 and 2004. Although many previous researchers have examined the difficulties faced by the ‘dam migrants’ in coping with their new environments, little specific attention has been paid to young-adult migrants who were displaced from the TGD region as infants/children/adolescents and grew up and obtained education in their respective(‘local’) receiving areas. The aim of the proposed study is to fill this gap in the context of Guangdong.In the interdisciplinary field of migration/refugee studies, young-adult migrants are rarely treated as a distinct category. They are either assumed to face challenges similar to those of their parents or relegated to the margins of scholarship, viewed as young newcomers who ultimately form part of society’s ‘melting pot’ through acculturation. However, the results of my preliminary study of 18-29 year old dam migrants in Guangdong suggest that neither approach is adequate to characterise the displacement experiences of young-adult migrants. In the proposed study, therefore, the migration trajectories (and in some cases the return journeys) and post-migration lives of young-adult migrants will be framed in terms of ‘ambivalent mobilities’.As infants, children or adolescents at the time of their displacement, they usually feel neither “forced” nor “motivated” when making sense of their relocation in the present. In addition, as the victims of intense discrimination in local schools, young-adult migrants rarely identify themselves as either ‘locals’ or ‘outsiders’ during the complex process of acculturation. Besides, they usually cultivate some degree of ongoing if unsettling connection with their friends/relatives in the areas of displacement due to improvements in national transport and social network technologies. These ‘homeland’ connections often lead to ambivalence as to whether to remain in the receiving area or to return to one’s birthplace in the future. The term ‘mobilities’ here denotes not only the physical journeys taken by the actors, but also their perceived returnability, as well as other movement imaginaries to leave Guangdong which – as I have observed – they seldom regard as ‘home.’Empirically, the ambivalent mobilities of young-adult migrants will be unravelled through analysis of narratives solicited from approximately 50 young-adult migrants in Guangdong and 15 returnees to Chongqing. The main areas of focus will be the respondents’ memories of their pre-/postmigration lives, their experiences of bicultural identity and their perceived predicaments/opportunities in pursuing livelihood. A conventional ethnographic-fieldwork approach will be adopted, supplemented by less conventional methods such as ‘reunion activities,’ QQ/wechat interviews, and photo-elicitation. In addition, interviews will be held with small samples of young-adult migrants (N~=15) in Shanghai and Sichuan (or Hubei), respectively. This serves to highlight the commonalities and differences in the displacement experiences of young-adult migrants in Guangdong with those in a developed coastal province/city similar to Guangdong (Shanghai), and those in a province/city (Sichuan or Hubei) that geographically and culturally resembles the sending area, Chongqing.