Standing Between Freedom and Alienation —Consumption among Chinese Students in the United States

• In Event: 3166 - Section on the Sociology of Consumers and Consumption Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 4: Money and Markets

Abstract

Through observations, surveys, and interviews, this paper examines the role of consumption in transnational Chinese students’ experiences when they relocate themselves in the global economic system by studying in the U.S. Chinese students share a unique consumer culture built on their specific position in the political economies of China and the U.S., specifically China’s post-socialist modernization and economic growth and United States’ dominant position in the globalization process. As a reaction to their marginal socio-political position in the U.S., students’ status as consumers is pushed to the forefront; their transnational education experiences are maintained by their abilities to consume goods and services that make up their educational journeys, both in and out of the classroom. Consumption becomes a ground of struggle that simultaneously signifies students’ economic freedom and reflects their social and political alienation based on race, nationality, citizenship, and language skills. Communicated through peer emulation and facilitated by commercial brokers, this culture also serves as a strategy for students to navigate alienation and build community while carving out space in the consumption terrain of the U.S. Moreover, when both people and merchandise cross borders, there are impacts on the ways in which people make sense of material goods. This paper further reveals the trajectories in which students reconstruct meanings associated with certain products—from acquiring Western imports in China to shopping for Chinese imports in the U.S. During this process, students use transnational products to build their own visual and cultural repertoire instead of looking up to a dominant white western middle-class culture.

Author

• Jing Huang