Constructing Space: A Longitudinal Study of Immigrants from Wenzhou in Paris

This book presents the findings of a ten-year longitudinal study on the experience of Chinese immigrants from Wenzhou in Paris. The author examines the impact of the evolving spaces people from Wenzhou have built for themselves in the French capital, both within immigrant communities and French society at large.

The study discovers that over the course of a decade, immigrants from Wenzhou in Paris have experienced notable changes in the industries they work in, where they live, their organizational structure, how they interact with one another, and their inter-generational dynamics. This book investigates four specific spaces: economic, social, cultural, and policy-related, all of which emerge from immigrants’ integration into local society and in turn impact their own integration. The author aims to reveal the paths and mechanisms of the community and how their social spaces have been constructed while the production mechanism of society from the theoretical point of view is also explored.

The book will be of interest to scholars and students of Sociology, Immigration Studies, and East Asian Studies. It will also be an essential reading for those who are interested in Chinese immigration in general.

Dr. Wang Chunguang is Deputy Director of the Institute of Sociology and Head of the Social Policy Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His research interests include social structure, rural sociology, social mobility, social policies, social governance, society building, social integration of immigrants, and poverty alleviation in rural areas. Dr. Wang is also the author of Social Mobility and Social Reconstruction (1995).