1,721,082 research outputs found
Leveling the playing field: reassessing gender and socio-economic disparities in online spaces
No full textpublished_or_final_versionabstractSociologyDoctoralDoctor of Philosoph
Farming for respect : an ethnographic study of mainland migrant mothers in Hong Kong
No full textAs the number of mainland migrant mothers in Hong Kong grows, the social tension between migrants and locals increases, reflecting a need to understand the deeper inherent issues leading to the manifestation of this tension. This understanding should go beyond the surface of media portrayal or stereotypical images of migrant mothers. While a great number of local research related to mainland migration issues exists in Hong Kong, few focus specifically on the aspect of motherhood amongst mainland migrant women.
Mainland migrant mothers are uprooted from their rural villages to a highly westernized city where they find immense difficulty in transplanting their maternal roots. Although people in Hong Kong are predominately Chinese, it is highly influenced by its colonial past making the culture in Hong Kong a hybrid of westernized Chinese values. This cultural context has great bearings on how migrant mothers interpret motherhood expectations and traditional Chinese values with reference to mother-child relationships.
How such dynamic changes in mothering culture affect migrant women’s maternal identities are examined. This research studies the interpretations, rationalizations and strategies involved in the negotiation of maternal identity of financially deprived mainland migrant women in Hong Kong.
More importantly, this research appreciates migrant mothers' needs to reconsider Chinese mothering values as they negotiate their identities in a new land. Migrant mothers navigate the westernized-Chinese expectations of local motherhood and redefine what constitutes good mothering, giving new denotations to traditional Chinese values such as xiao, or filial piety. I divided the discussion of this thesis into three domains: (1) to examine mainland migrant mothers in the wider context of Hong Kong, including schools and welfare institutions; (2) to understand how migration and poverty affect maternal identity in terms of their relationships with their children and finally (3) to study migrant mothers' behavior among their own social groups and how social relationships become conducive to their identity negotiation strategies.
Hinged upon the practicalities of life, migrant mothers learn to navigate local motherhood expectations with limited resources and little relevant knowledge about the city. This study illustrates the intricate strategies that migrant mothers deploy as they construct identities based not only on the gap between Hong Kong and traditional mainland motherhoods, but also according to changing social context and culture.published_or_final_versionSociologyDoctoralDoctor of Philosoph
Islam, desires, and intimate relations in an ethnic context : exploration of extramarital relationships among the Hui in Western China
No full textWhile extramarital affairs and bao ernai have gained notoriety in Chinese society, the phenomena of xiaosan and ernai have been explosive in academic and legal spheres. Yet, these social phenomena among ethnic minority groups in China are unknown. This study is the first to explore the experiences of extramarital relations outside official marriage among the Hui ethnic group in China. The extramarital relations in the specific dual (Han/Hui) cultural context are interpreted and understood diversely due to the interplay among a host of conditioning factors –interests, beliefs, norms, legal codes, moral sanctions.
By using the snowball sampling method, this study has deployed in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 41 Hui men and women living in either the capital or in a the small town oin Qinghai Province in western China. This thesis examines the way in which Islamic religious values are played out in the context of Chinese law and extramarital relations. It also examines why, given the Hui knowledge of their religious and ethnic position, the Hui engage in extramarital affairs outside official marriage. Thus, it seeks to understand the Hui with respect to their intimacy and sexual relations both within and outside official marriage in contemporary China.
This study argues that, in the local context, the Hui preserve their religious beliefs and Islamic values to differentiate themselves from other ethnic groups. Islam is a key marker of their ethnicity, functioning as religious law to culturally validate their behavior. Local knowledge of legal pluralism enables the Hui to act defiantly, despite the state’s disapproval of their practices of extramarital intimacy and sex. The interaction between the state and customary law is under the unilateral control of the state. Instead of coexisting, this legal unilateralization shows that customary law usually gives way to state law wherever they intersect. As a result, the interplay of the two legal cultures – that of the Chinese state and that of Islam – produces crime, but also makes extramarital relationships in the Hui context possible.
I argue that Islamic beliefs cannot fully explain the individualism and subjectivity of Muslims in the context of extramarital practices, especially within a transforming China and a globalizing economy. The Hui articulate and negotiate their multiple affective, sexual, and material desires to raise their self-awareness of aspirations and construe their autonomy and self-representation in order to justify their behavior. Individual desires also play a pivotal role in interpreting their practices, and are in turn played out in the intersection of intimacy, gender, ethnicity, social status, and age.
The interplay of ethnicity and desires helps us to better understand these experiences in a cultural context that includes increased ethnic consciousness among the Hui and the emergence of varied desires among them within desiring China.published_or_final_versionSociologyDoctoralDoctor of Philosoph
Drug careers: an interactional pathway into adolescent drug-use
No full textpublished_or_final_versionabstracttocSociologyDoctoralDoctor of Philosoph
Attitudes toward rape and sexual assault: a comparative analysis of professional groups in Hong Kong
No full textpublished_or_final_versionabstracttocSociologyMasterMaster of Philosoph
Suicidal behaviours among illicit drug users
No full textpublished_or_final_versionabstractSociologyMasterMaster of Philosoph
Exploring the "drug problem" in historical and contemporary Hong Kong
No full textpublished_or_final_versionSociologyMasterMaster of Philosoph
The role of informal social networks in marital conflict, violence among newly arrived wives in Hong Kong
No full textpublished_or_final_versionabstracttocSociologyMasterMaster of Philosoph
The social construction of rave culture in Hong Kong
No full textpublished_or_final_versionSociologyMasterMaster of Philosoph
The construction of gender and morality in crime novels
No full textpublished_or_final_versionSociologyMasterMaster of Philosoph
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