School-to-work transitions in the borderland: choices and experiences among youth from Kinmen,Taiwan

Abstract

Young people are sensitive to rapid social transformations. Located in the southwest of the main island of Taiwan and only six kilometres to the east of Xiamen, China, Kinmen County was placed under War Zone Administration (WZA) during the Cold War and experienced a state of siege for forty-three years. After 1992, Kinmen has quickly transformed from being a war frontier to become a frontline borderland for business and politics between Taiwan and China. Due to the geographical and historical periphery position of Kinmen, the school-to-work transition for Kinmen young people is bonded and complicated with decision-making processes of migration. This study thus investigates how decisions of education, employment and migration made by young people growing up in the marginal area—Kinmen, are affected by the impact of globalization, and its interaction with state power and local contexts. Fieldwork was conducted in three sites--Kinmen, the main island of Taiwan and Mainland China. Youth in this research refers to young people who were at various stages of school-to-work transition. The age of school-to-work transition is diverse across different social backgrounds. Based on a qualitative ethnographic study from 2016 to 2018, formal in-depth interviews were carried out with 34 research participants including 16 female and 18 male youth, aged from 20 to 35 years old. Informal conversations with participants through online mobile applications such as Line or Facebook Messenger were conducted as well. Furthermore, secondary data was also collected from online forums, news reports and government documents for a more comprehensive understanding of social, cultural and political issues affecting youth from Kinmen. Using a geopolitical lens to comprehend globalization, neoliberalism and cosmopolitanism, I propose a multi-layer framework of globalization interlocking with geopolitics, wider social structure and local topographies to understand the choices and experiences among youth. First, the uncertainties of young people in Kinmen stem from the ambiguous cross-strait relationship where the livelihood of young people is highly bonded with state power in an era of globalization. Secondly, the introduction of cross-border consumers and transnational corporations into Kinmen has revealed how effects of transnational capitalism and neoliberal globalization have led to increasingly individualized and insecure work environments for local youth. Thirdly, young people's migration decisions and risk management techniques are affected by competing factors of economic power and cultural flows under the processes of globalization. Four types of youth are therefore identified: stay-at-home observer, pursuer of cosmopolitan, great-power dreamer, and cross-border traveller. Meanwhile, traditional gender norms which has been reinforced by the prevailing patriarchal clan culture in Kinmen, deeply interlocked with social position of class and the unique ethnic identity of being Kinmenese, have all contributed to interweavingly influence young people's decisions-making processes against a background of globalization.