Precarity or Empowerment: Rethinking Racism Through Pre-Migration Liminality

• In Event: 20868 - The Politics of Racism and Anti-Racism: Racial Processes Across Institutions

Abstract

Abstract
This paper examines how pre-migration liminality shapes the perceptions of racism among Chinese working holiday makers (WHMs) in Australia. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnographic study that combines six-month participant observation in Australia and China and in-depth interviews with 45 Chinese WHMs, the analysis reveals that Chinese youth’s pre-migration experiences—characterized by hukou-based exclusion, educational stratification, and gendered or sexual marginalization—profoundly influence how they interpret racial discrimination in the host country. The findings indicate that these migrants employ comparative frameworks, contrasting Australia’s racial climate with both the overt Sinophobia observed in the United States and the multifaceted discrimination experienced in China, which enables them to negotiate a paradoxical coexistence of precarity and empowerment. By foregrounding the role of migrants’ pre-migration social conditions, this study challenges dominant narratives that portray temporary migrants solely as victims of exploitation due to an overreliance on the host country’s racial framework, underscoring the fluid, transnational nature of racial identities and agency. Overall, the paper contributes to broader discussions on migration, race, and inequality by offering a nuanced perspective on how structural and subjective dimensions intersect in shaping migrant experiences.
Keywords: Pre-migration Liminality; Temporary Migrants; Working Holiday Makers; Racism; Empowerment; Agency

Author

• Qing Tingting Liu, University at Albany, SUNY