Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
7-2021
Abstract
Scholars have long debated whether international migration impinges on states’ control over transborder populations. In this article, I lay bare how states consolidate control through the calculated manipulation of emigrant citizenship. Based on a genealogical interrogation of China’s emigrant citizenship policies from the 1950s to present and three months of fieldwork in an emigrant community in China, I illustrate that the state first revokes emigrants’ citizenship and then imposes selective conditions on its restoration upon their return. China’s otherwise domestically oriented citizenship regime, namely, the household registration (hukou) system, works similarly as an international immigration regime by selecting and documenting potential citizens. My study sheds new light on the understudied external control of the hukou system by examining how it limits emigrants’ right of resettlement and proscribes overseas dual residency. I argue that citizenship is anything but an enduring, unproblematic demographic fact. It is, in essence, a revocable, precarious politico-legal accomplishment. These malleable processes enable the state to redefine the citizenship of absent and returned members, reinsert the congruence between nationality and residency, and reinforce control over transborder populations. These findings may have implications for similar mechanisms of governing international migrants through documentation and legal codification beyond China.
Keywords
Emigrant citizenship, emigration state, transborder population, China, hukou, deprivation and restoration
Discipline
Asian Studies | Demography, Population, and Ecology | Immigration Law
Research Areas
Sociology
Publication
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Volume
47
Issue
3
First Page
557
Last Page
574
ISSN
1369-183X
Identifier
10.1080/1369183X.2020.1788381
Publisher
Taylor and Francis
Citation
LIU, Jiaqi M..(2021). Citizenship on the move: The deprivation and restoration of emigrants' hukou in China. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(3), 557-574.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3852
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1788381
Included in
Asian Studies Commons, Demography, Population, and Ecology Commons, Immigration Law Commons