"Big Fish in a Small Pond": Chinese Migrant Shopkeepers in South Africa. (March 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lin, Edwin
• Is Part Of: International migration review. Volume 48(2014)Supplement 1
• Page Start: 181
• Page End: 215
• Publication Date: 2014-03
• Subjects: Emigration and immigration -- Periodicals; 325.05
• DOI: 10.1111/imre.12074
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0197-9183

Abstract

The steady growth of Chinese migrants to South Africa in the past decade provides an opportunity to use Sen's (2001, Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press) capabilities approach in the field of immigration. This theoretical framing reveals that the Chinese employ, what I call, a small pond migration strategy – utilizing mobility to maximize their social, economic, and human capital. I argue that the Chinese move to South Africa because of a desire to venture out of China and pursue freedoms associated with being one's own boss. Once in South Africa, they choose to stay because of comfortable weather and a slower pace of life, despite losing freedoms associated with high crime in Johannesburg. The findings suggest alternative ways of understanding factors of migration as well as a model that explains migration from more developed countries to less developed ones.