Cosmologies of Credit: Transnational Mobility and the Politics of Destination in China by Julie Y. Chu (review)

When the migrant smuggling vessel Golden Venture, with 286 Chinese migrants aboard, crashed on a reef near New York City in 1993, it focused national media attention on the phenomenon of migrant smuggling from the People’s Republic of China. Subsequent incidents, including the gruesome June 2000 discovery in Dover, England, by British officials of fifty-eight Chinese who had suffocated in a refrigerator truck, further highlighted the dangers and horrors associated with this human trade.

Most media accounts of Chinese migrant smuggling have focused on issues related to total numbers smuggled, methods of smuggling (including circuitous air and sea routes), and the structure of transnational crime organizations that specialize in this illicit trade. Due to various access barriers (social, political, linguistic, etc.), much less attention has been directed toward the sending environment, including the social and economic milieu in China that fosters an emigration ethic.

Cosmologies of Credit: Transnational Mobility and the Politics of Destination in China attempts to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the cultural and social context within China that fuels this human trade, or what the author characterizes as “particular cultural-historical moments when desire meets potentiality” (p. 5). An anthropologist by background and training, the author conducted extensive fieldwork in the village of Longyan (in Fujian Province—traditionally an important source of smuggled migrants headed to the United States), where she gained unique and virtually unfettered access to individuals, families, and political leaders associated with this human smuggling phenomenon.

The book is divided into three sections, each with two chapters. Section 1 emphasizes historical contexts and social settings. In chapter 1, the author struggles with the concept of place in the context of migration. Longyan is virtually a transnational location, with so many of its inhabitants having traveled abroad. “Overseas remittances currently comprise approximately 70 percent of all income in Longyan, and according to the local party secretary’s office, an estimated twothirds of these remittances go to the renovation and construction of houses and temples” (p. 35). The author describes scenes of “restaurant English” being taught in Longyan to the next group of overseas aspirants (p. 55).

One product of this migration since the 1980s has been the proliferation of trophy houses throughout Longyan funded by overseas remittances. Overseas migrants seem to be in a state of competition, trying to out-build the tallest and most extravagant so-called American guest homes. Moreover, the housing types tend to reflect different waves of migration; migration to the United States is associated with houses that are built with tiled exteriors (p. 43). Moreover, American guest houses tend to have fewer occupants, owing to the fact that so many family members have gone abroad (p. 43). For this reason, many of the houses are left unfinished, particularly the interiors.

One particularly fascinating section of the book explores the concept of nongmin (peasant). The nongmin was, according to the author, “the kind of state identification that reeked of social and economic limitations both in Longyan and in other places across China” (p. 63). Moreover, the nongmin category became a “caste-like system of social stratification” (p. 64). The author dispels any notion that China was a paradise for the much heralded peasant: “[A]lmost everyone who had lived through rural collectivization and the disastrous Great Leap forward pointed to ‘peasant’ identification as a source of sufferings and persistent disadvantages under the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]” (p. 66). For residents of Longyan, emigration provided rapid social mobility within China. Thus, migration abroad was not merely about finding jobs or making more money; it was a way in which a peasant could transcend his “place” in China (p. 94).

Consequently, everything acquired abroad was golden, including children born overseas. The so-called American child was often sent back to China to be raised by relatives. “Not only were these children the...