Organized International Asylum-Seeker Networks: Formation and Utilization by the Chinese Students

Abstract

This article examines the formation and role of international networks formed by Chinese students living in the West in the late 1980s and early 1990s as part of their efforts to obtain the right to remain in Western countries in the immediate aftermath of the Tiananmen Square violence of June 4, 1989. Various forms of migrant social networks have been a research focus in international refugee and migration studies, but international networks formed by asylum seekers themselves, and their role in asylum-seeking processes, have been largely ignored. This article is based on a multi-method comparative study of Chinese students living in Australia and the United States at the time. Their experi..