Doctoral Dissertation Research: Transnational Migration and the Global Circulation of Talent

SES-1519268 Liza WeinsteinYingchan Zhang东北大学越来越多的美国-据报道，近年来有受过教育的中国人返回中国。中国官方媒体强调了这些归国人员的繁荣前景，以及国家对他们在国家向知识经济转型中的重要性的认识。随着中国城市竞相吸引人才回流，人们对市政战略如何运作以及回流技术劳动力在中国城市发展中的作用知之甚少。本论文研究的是中国城市吸纳美国移民的方式。本报告旨在探讨受过良好教育的中国人才如何实现其刺激城市发展的目标，以及这些招聘举措如何反过来影响目标归国人员的移民决策和重新融入社会的经历。本研究探讨了三个问题：1）中国城市如何在全球化的希望中招募美国人，2）这些招聘项目如何影响在美国受教育的中国人才的移民决定以及归国人员在中国的重新融入经历3）中国当地政府和归国人员对“价值”和“贡献”概念化的方式之间的脱节如何影响他们相互作用的方式。为了研究这些主题，研究人员将对中国东部的一个主要城市进行个案研究，并将半结构化访谈、参与式观察和二次分析作为主要调查方法。 本研究具有以下潜在影响。首先，它将有助于对城市发展，全球城市和跨国移民的社会科学研究，通过提出一个重要的案例来理解新自由主义时代城市发展的复杂性，并展示具体的国家发展政策如何影响高技能专业人员的搬迁和定居模式。其次，本研究将提供政策制定者和城市规划者的启示。研究结果将有助于在全球化世界中相互激烈竞争的城市更好地了解吸引人才的战略在实践中如何发挥作用，以及这些战略是否确实促进了发展。此外，该项目将告知如何在当代保留具有全球移动的性质的高度竞争力的劳动力。随着来自亚洲的高技能移民在美国移民总数中所占比例越来越大，美国的政策制定者必须了解这些程序，以便就移民改革做出明智的决定，特别是关于吸引和留住高技能移民的政策。

SES-1519268 Liza WeinsteinYingchan ZhangNortheastern UniversityAn increasing number of U.S.-educated Chinese have reportedly returned to China in recent years. Chinese state-run media emphasize the prosperous outlook for these returnees and the state's recognition of their importance for the country's transition to a knowledge economy. As Chinese cities compete to attract talented returnees, little is known about how the municipal strategies work and what roles returning skilled labor indeed play in Chinese cities' development. This dissertation research studies the ways in which Chinese cities recruit U.S.-educated Chinese talent to achieve their goal of stimulating urban development, and how these recruitment initiatives in turn affect the migration decisions and reincorporation experiences of the targeted returnees. This study addresses three questions: 1) how Chinese cities, in the hope of becoming global, recruit U.S.-trained Chinese talent back for development projects 2) how these recruitment programs affect the migration decisions of U.S-educated Chinese talent in the U.S. and the reincorporation experiences of the returnees in China 3) how the disjunctures between the ways the local Chinese state and the returnees conceptualize "value" and "contribution" influence the ways in which they interact with each other. To examine these themes, the researchers will conduct a case study of a major city in eastern China and utilize semi-structured interviews, participant observation and secondary analysis as the main methods of investigation. This study has the following potential impacts. Firstly, it will contribute to social science research on urban development, global cities, and transnational migration by presenting a critical case for understanding the complexities of urban development in the neoliberal era and demonstrating how specific state development policies affect the relocation and settlement patterns of highly skilled professionals. Secondly, this study will provide implications for policy makers and urban planners. The findings will help cities that fiercely compete with each other in a globalizing world to better understand how the strategies of attracting talent work in practice and if these strategies do foster development. Moreover, this project will inform how to retain a highly competitive workforce that is globally mobile in nature in the contemporary era. As highly-skilled immigrants from Asia consist of an increasing part of the overall immigration to the U.S., it is essential for U.S. policy makers to understand these processes in order to make informed decisions about immigration reform in general and about policies to attract and retain highly skilled immigrants in particular.