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Title
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Coping strategies for navigating boundaries : resilience and connectivity of African students’ multilevel social networks in China
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Author
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Abstract
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| This chapter presents our study investigating coping strategies employed by African students during their studies in China, drawing upon existing academic literature on migration social networks (traditional, digital, and multilevel), and transnational digital habitus, which together forms a platform giving African students the agency to develop pathways towards dynamic problem resolution. This study employs in-depth interviews regarding African students’ decision making processes and study experiences in China, and utilizes ethnographic methodologies to investigate the experiences of African students in China within both physical and digital spaces. The results show how African students in China employ coping strategies to navigate challenges at different stages of their studies, including during the preparation and arrival phase, the study phase, and the graduation career phase. When facing restrictions and obstacles, African students in China construct coping strategies by leveraging overlapping layers of dynamic social networks and transnational digital habitus that are used to reach out for information, resources, and support both online and offline. The multilevel social network architecture is based on the foundation of both digital platforms and physical, geo-spatial locations. Thus, the high digital and physical density of the African student community with spatial diversifcation provides the core of different levels of social network development. Such forms of multilevel social networks offer more space for resilience with diversification and flexibility for African students in different locations of China to resolve the obstacles they encounter. |
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Language
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English
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Source (book)
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Interdisciplinary migration research with a focus on new technologies and multiple crises : relating birds of passage to social policies / Hillman, Felicitas [edit.]
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Publication
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Berlin
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Berlin Universities Publishing
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2024
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ISBN
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978-3-98781-012-1
978-3-98781-011-4
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DOI
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10.14279/DEPOSITONCE-19783
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Volume/pages
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p. 128-147
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Full text (Publisher's DOI)
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