Editorial Note: This interview feature was curated as part of Sociological Inquiry’s “Meet the Authors” campaign with a goal of celebrating and publicizing the scholarship of Sociological Inquiry (SI) authors. This feature was made possible through a collaboration between AKD’s Media Editor, Dr. Stephanie Wilson, and the following SI authors:
- Qing Tingting Liu, Ph.D. Candidate at University at Albany, SUNY; Pre-doctoral Fellow at Yale Center for Cultural Sociology; Social Media Coordinator for AAAS Social Science Caucus; Researcher of Asian Cultural Research Hub (ACRH) at University of Melbourne. Connect with Qing on Twitter and Instagram!
- Angie Chung, Professor of Sociology, US-Korea Fulbright Scholar, SUNY Civic Learning and Engagement and Civil Discourse Fellow
Thank you to Qing Tingting Liu and Dr. Chung for their participation in this campaign!
Chinese International Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic
How have Chinese international students navigated their ambiguous “racial and ethnonational position between nations during the global pandemic?” Research from Qing Tingting Liu and Angie Y. Chung of the University of Albany, recently published in Sociological Inquiry‘s Special Issue on Transculturality of Anti-Asian Racism, draws on 16 student interviews to argue that “Chinese international students have occupied a liminal space between nations that shapes their understanding of race and racism through a distinctly geopolitical lens.”
Continue reading for more on this insightful analysis!
Meet the Authors
The following is an exclusive interview with the Ph.D. Candidate Qing Tingting Liu and Professor of Sociology Angie Chung. Below, they shares behind-the-scenes insights into their article, “The Reconstruction of the Cosmopolitan Imaginary: Chinese International Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Can you briefly describe your most recent publication in Sociological Inquiry, including its purpose and a summary of major insights or findings?
The aim of this paper is to examine the ways in which Chinese international students have viewed and negotiated their ambiguous racial and ethnonational position between nations during the global pandemic. Drawing on 16 student interviews at one upstate New York campus between 2019 and 2021, we argue that Chinese international students have occupied a liminal space between nations that shapes their understanding of race and racism through a distinctly geopolitical lens.
Double-edged exclusion and discrimination from both the US and China during the global pandemic have heightened their sense of social dislocation and withdrawal from nationalist politics in both countries. In the process, they have not so much surrendered the cosmopolitan ideals that motivated their migration but rather, reimagined them while maintaining a delicate balance between global cosmopolitan ideals and ethnonationalist loyalties. Our findings provide insights into the future political trajectory of Chinese transborder migrants amid tense US–China relations and help to explain the contradictions of diasporic Chinese worldviews on current affairs.
How were you introduced to the topic of the publication discussed above and what motivated you to study the topic as a social scientist?
This is not just a study about Chinese international students’ radicalization experience in the U.S. During the global pandemic, transborder migrants have occupied a growing liminal space between countries in a manner that further distances them not only culturally but also, socially and politically from the worldview of resident citizens in both countries. In the process, they have not so much surrendered the cosmopolitan ideals that motivated their migration but rather, reimagined them while maintaining a delicate balance between global cosmopolitan ideals and ethnonationalist loyalties.
As a researcher, I came to the U.S. to pursue my Ph.D. in August 2019 and was stuck during the COVID-19 pandemic, separated from my family and friends back in my home country for five years. After the outbreak of the pandemic, I had been talking with many Chinese international students in the United States and got to know their motivations for studying abroad, their experiences with racialization, and their ongoing changing plans regarding “staying in the U.S.” and “returning to China” amidst the background of changing geopolitics between China and the U.S. and the global world. Their life stories highly resonate with mine, so I would like to conduct this study to make our experiences seen and heard.
How does your publication challenge social scientists to look anew at traditional areas or identify novel areas for investigation?
The scholarship on cosmopolitanism provides an analytical entryway for understanding the post-colonial features of the western global imaginary today, but they leave open the question of how cosmopolitanism can also be used as a way to reclaim a sense of identity and belonging for diasporic migrants who traverse the borders of developed and developing nations. Our article explores the possibility of a critical cosmopolitan imaginary among international students apart from its colonialist or Western imperialist roots and instead, as a reclamation of the nationally liminal aspirations and identities of Asian international students throughout the processes of transnational mobility.
How does your publication challenge members of society more broadly to deepen their understanding of the topic of your paper?
Although viewed as belonging to both Asian and Asian American communities, Chinese international students’ experience of discrimination in the U.S. during the pandemic is distinct from those of both long-term immigrants and native-born Asian Americans. The traditional scholarship on Asian/American racial citizenship does not fully explain the intersectional interplay of race and nationality on their sense of non-citizen “Otherness” between nations and the impact on their worldview. We want to highlight that the societal reception to specific immigrant groups has been influenced by not only the social standing of the group within the host nation but also by the geopolitical positioning of their sending nation to the host nation within the world order.
If you had to choose one major takeaway from your paper to share, what would it be?
Overall, our study argues for a more critical approach to international education that does not merely reproduce the nationalist frameworks of the Global North or South nor overlooks the hegemonic effects of post-colonial legacies and global inequalities in shaping migrant experiences. This task will require greater scholarly and public attention to the wide range of transborder migrants and refugees who have been trapped in between competing nations, parties, and ideologies in the post-COVID era.
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