Mobility and immobility: the fluctuation of citizenship of resettled Vietnamese refugees in China

Abstract Contradicting the existing refugee studies literature criticizing China’s passive engagement in international refugee protection, China accepted as many as 300,000 Vietnamese refugees (难侨) of Chinese descent in the wake of the Vietnam War and resettled them on state-owned farms in southern China. By focusing on Vietnamese refugees on a state-owned farm on the Leizhou Peninsula, South China, this study examines the (im)mobility experience of resettled Vietnamese refugees in China, through which the fluctuation of citizenship is reflected. This paper brings the ignored dimension of the state into the analysis of (im)mobility. While showing how the resettlement regime shapes the mobility and immobility experience of Vietnamese refugees in China, this study demonstrates their agency in relation to the desire for four statuses of mobility and immobility. Meanwhile, this paper demonstrates the fluctuation of citizenship of the group of resettled Vietnamese refugees over the past four decades. In doing so, it expands the scope of existing literature on migration and refugee studies to an understudied country of destination, China, and helps us better understand the complexity of refugees’ experiences within broader socio-economic and politico-institutional changes.