Transitions across Borders: Migration Aspirations and the Negotiation of Subjectivities among Young Adults in a Periphery

Intense globalisation has reshaped the material basis and culture of young people’s lives, changing both the geographical landscape of inequalities and the relationship between centre (metropolitan areas) and periphery (spatially and economically marginalised locations). At a time of economic globalisation and neoliberal restructuring, young people are expected to take charge of their lives according to an ethic of individual self-actualisation and self-development with those in the periphery encouraged to migrate to overcome geographical marginalisation. Willingness, or even eagerness, to be mobile is portrayed as the dominant appraised characteristic of a cosmopolitan, modern, entrepreneurial young agent at the juncture where peripheral youth transition and migration intersect.
This paper examines the migration aspirations of young people from Kinmen, an offshore island in Taiwan, and their migratory trajectories, encompassing internal migration to the main island of Taiwan and cross-border migration to China. Based on multi-site ethnographic data from 30 young adults, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of migration aspirations and decision-making of peripheral youth in relation to growing structural inequalities and the cultural hierarchy in today’s globalized world, the rise of China in particular. It shows how ever-changing social and cultural configurations shape individuals’ migration decisions. When their youth to adulthood transition processes are deeply entwined with the discourse surrounding borders, places and national identities, these young adults navigate and negotiate their borderland identity through mobility in the midst of evolving cross-strait political dynamics.
Instead of presuming migration as linear and principally economic, this paper explores the diverse motivations and migration decisions of migrant youths. We examine the formation of mobility aspirations as an ongoing process shaped by young migrants’ feelings and experiences in the present and past and their perceptions of the future. Using “migration aspiration” as a critical lens, this paper highlights the importance of considering the context of regional economic and cultural transformations and pressures while analysing young people’s negotiation of subjectivities as migrants. While reigniting the agency of young people in their decision-making process in migration studies, our careful investigation of the aspirational dimensions of youth migration points to complex interactions between sociocultural influences and individual agency, highlighting the fluid nature of migration, which continually confounds individual expectations. The distinctive experiences of peripheral youth shed new light on the conceptualisation of border crossing, place and desires under the sway of globalisation.