Since the early 1990s several million men and women from Southeast Asia’s lower socioeconomic classes have migrated to East Asia with a temporary worker visa or a spousal visa. This article is based on five years of ongoing fieldwork in migrants’ communities of origin in rural Vietnam and in places of destination in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. The authors make three contributions: first, they argue that the categorization of migrants as either “workers” or “wives” in research obscures the complex trajectories and motives involved in the process of “becoming a migrant.” Second, they challenge studies that unquestioningly invoke social network approaches to migration. Instead, social networks should be regarded as a double-edged sword for emigrants because personal networks are embedded in a powerful migration industry. Third, they contend that migration outcomes and levels of success are, in part, influenced by processes taking place before departure. This article sheds light on the tension between migrants’ agency and the structural constraints faced by candidates seeking to migrate from Vietnam, and from Southeast Asia more broadly.
成為移民：越南人向東亞的移民
自1990年代初以來數百萬來自南亞社會經濟底層的男女籍臨時工作簽證或配偶簽證移民到東亞。基於在越南農村移民輸出社區及臺灣、韓國和日本等移民目的地連續五年的實地調查，本文探討了三方面的問題。首先，本文認為在研究中把移民分為“勞工”或“妻子”的分類法將“成為一個移民”的過程中複雜的軌跡和動機簡單化。其次，我們質疑移民研究中對社會關係網研究方式不假思索的採用。我們認為社會關係網對移民來說應該被理解為一把雙刃劍，因為人際關係網是根植於一個強大的移民產業之中的。最後，我們主張，移民的結果和成功程度部分地受出發前的過程的影響。本文還討論了移民中介機構之間的矛盾及來自越南及南亞移民申請者面臨的結構性侷限。
Translated from English by Xin Huang
Danièle Bélanger