PhD thesis final - Royal Holloway, University of London

Chapter1- Introductionresearch methods, including in-depth interviews and participant observation, withsixty-five Taiwanese expatriates currently working and living in major cities in the YRD.Following a pilot research trip to the YRD in China the main field research was carriedout from February to July, 2007. The fieldwork dynamics which helped me analyseTaiwanese expatriates‘ practices of belonging and the ways in which I managed mypost-field data analysis and interpretation will be elaborated in Chapter three.1.5. Organisation of the ThesisThis thesis is organised into seven chapters. This first chapter has outlined the researchmotivations and objectives. Chapter two reviews the relevant literature, includingmigrant belonging and transnationalism, which places the study in its theoretical context.Chapter three establishes the methodological framework of the thesis by providinginformation on my choice of research site; qualitative research methods of in-depthinterviews and participant observation ; and the processes and procedures behind myinvestigations of Taiwanese expatriates‘ everyday lived experiences in the YRD. Theempirical research is spelled out in the subsequent three chapters which are organisedaccording to the everyday lived spaces of the home and domestic space, workplace andfinally leisure spaces. Each of these chapters examines Taiwanese expatriates‘ practicesof belonging to address the research objectives. These are followed by the concludingchapter, which elucidates the theoretical and methodological contributions, as well aspractical implications of this research to the relevant literature and indicates possibledirections for future research.32