Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of Global Migrations documents the lives and experiences of everyday people through the lens of human movement and mobility from 1400 to 1800. Focusing on the most important typologies of preindustrial global migrations, this volume reveals how these movements transformed global paths of mobility, the impacts of which we still see in societies today. Case studies include those that arose from the demand for free, forced, and unfree labor, long- and short-distance trade, rural/urban displacement, religious mobility, and the rise of the number of refugees worldwide. With thirty chapters from leading experts in the field, this authoritative volume is an essential and detailed study of how migration shaped the nature of global human interactions before the age of modern globalization.

Chapter 7 shifts attention to a different class of migrants in the post-Mao era, the new middle class and wealthy migrants. The chapter traces the rapid feminization of migration, the expanding importance of student migration, and the new prominence of skilled migrants and investors. It also shows how a drastic expansion in the numbers of Chinese tourists going abroad has shaped diasporic trajectories. The chapter also traces the emergence of new diasporic institutions, such as emigration companies, tourist agencies, and real estate firms, and their role in the development of “new Chinatowns” or “ethnoburbs” in overseas destinations.

Chapter 5 explores emerging diasporic communities and their relationships to host societies. Through studies conducted by the sociologist Paul Siu and the historian Wang Gungwu, this chapter explores the ways in which Chinese scholars and writers explored these relationships. The chapter shows that one factor making explorations of these relationships so urgent was the obstacles that Chinese migrants faced in host societies, such as restrictions on immigration and other forms of anti-Chinese legislation. The chapter demonstrates that urgency also stemmed from disruptions to existing diasporic trajectories due to revolution in China and the onset of the Cold War. This chapter then introduces another example of an evolving diasporic community, Los Angeles, focusing in particular on a husband and wife who played prominent roles in shaping the city’s new Chinatown and in asserting the rights of Chinese Americans. The chapter then turns to “return” migration and “secondary” migration in the mid-twentieth century, as ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia and elsewhere faced anti-Chinese violence and legislation.

Chapter 4 examines the politicization of diaspora, that is, the ways in which successive Chinese states made claim upon Chinese overseas, seeking to mobilize overseas Chinese for the cause of the Chinese nation. Concomitant with these efforts was the emergence of a concept of the overseas Chinese, or the Chinese diaspora, as a coherent, ideally unified population. The chapter traces the role of Chinese reformers, revolutionaries, and students in politicizing Chinese in diaspora. It also shows how Chinese states sought to coopt or create such diasporic institutions as native-place associations, schools, and chambers of commerce. The chapter asserts that World War II, known to Chinese as the War of Resistance against Japan, was an important “diasporic moment” in which overseas Chinese channeled resources for the nation. The chapter culminates by introducing the work of the early twentieth-century Chinese sociologist Chen Da, showing how his study of emigrant communities in China sought to answer the question of how Chinese migration affected the Chinese nation.

Chapter 6 surveys new waves of internal and external migration in the post-Mao era, arguing that they are linked phenomena. The chapter demonstrates that the larger phenomenon, the “floating population” of rural migrants in the cities of eastern, coastal China, is related to the phenomenon of “new migrants” targeting destinations beyond the borders of China. The chapter describes two important examples. The first is the simultaneous migration from some specific communities in the Wenzhou area of southern Zhejiang to Beijing and of migration from other specific communities in Wenzhou to such places as Prato, Italy. The second example consists of rural communities near the city of Wenzhou that both receive “internal” migrants from western China and send “external” migrants to such places as New York City. The chapter demonstrates the continued importance of kinship and native-place networks for the laborers and small entrepreneurs who made up the “floating population” and the “new migrants.” The chapter explores the stances and roles of various levels of government within China toward migrants. It concludes with a survey of family practices, including the reemergence of split families and the newer trends of family migration.

Chapter 3 surveys the vast expansion, both in the numbers of migrants and in the range of destinations, of Chinese migration during the age of mass migration, processes driven in part by industrialization and imperialism. The chapter both traces the expansion of existing diasporic trajectories, such as migration from Shandong to Manchuria and the Hokkien diaspora in Southeast Asia, and introduces new diasporic trajectories, such as the Teochiu migrants to Thailand, Cantonese migrants to Australasia and the Americas, and Zhejiang migrants to Europe. The chapter also draws attention to diasporic trajectories made up of female migrants, to Shanghai and Singapore, representing the beginnings of the feminization of migration. The chapter then introduces institutions unique to the age of mass migration: treaty ports, indentured servitude and the “coolie” trade. The chapter argues that while the age of migration was the heyday of such Chinese institutions as native-place associations and brotherhoods, it also witnessed the emergence of new types of migration services. The chapter concludes with a third example of a Chinese diasporic community, this one made up of Teochiu farmers in a village on the Malay Peninsula.

This concluding chapter raises the deceptively simple question whether or not there is such a thing as a Chinese diaspora. The first half of the chapter shows the efforts by which the People’s Republic of China has sought to standardize or homogenize diasporic institutions and mobilize overseas Chinese and ethnic Chinese abroad to the Chinese nation. The second half of the chapter describes ways in which ethnic Chinese have either complicated understandings of the Chinese diaspora as a homogeneous entity or resisted the drive toward standardization in the service of the Chinese nation.

Chapter 2 covers the years from 1740 to 1840, a period that some scholars refer to as the “Chinese century” in Southeast Asia and a period that partially overlaps with what Chinese historians call the High Qing and was known to contemporaries as the “prosperous age.” The chapter demonstrates that migration across the Qing frontiers and to destinations abroad was linked to the extraction of resources in Inner Asia and Southeast Asia for the Chinese market. This was a period in which Chinese laborers – miners and farmers – became distinct types of migrants. The chapter introduces a new diasporic trajectory, that of Hakkas to Borneo and other areas in Southeast Asia. It traces the development of such diasporic institutions as native-place associations, or huiguan, and the emergence of others, such as revenue farms, brotherhoods, and kongsi. It also further explores the issues of split families, maintained through remittances, and of unmarriageable men for whom migration became a means of ascending the marriage ladder. The chapter ends with an example of another diasporic community, the Chinese mestizos in the Philippine town of Malabon.

Chapter 1 surveys Chinese migration during the early modern period, here defined as 1500 to 1740. The chapter introduces the concept of a trade diaspora and describes some important examples, Huizhou, Shanxi, and Hokkien. It introduces diasporic institutions important during the early modern era: lineages, native-place associations, temples, and various types of intermediaries. The chapter then describes the ways in which migration was gendered, focusing on male migration, split families, and intermarriage. The chapter ends with an example of one diasporic community, the Huizhou salt merchants who formed the upper tier of the socioeconomic elite in the city of Yangzhou.

The introduction surveys the main conceptual approaches that scholars take to study Chinese migration: diaspora, overseas Chinese (and Chinese overseas), ethnic studies, and Sinophone studies. It then describes common explanations for migration, including push and pull factors, migrant networks, and cultures of migration, in the process showing that very particular diasporic trajectories from specific emigrant communities in China to specific destinations both within and outside China constitute “the Chinese diaspora.” Finally, the introduction makes a case for considering internal and external Chinese migration as linked phenomena, and argues that migration was usually part of a broader family strategy for socioeconomic maintenance.