Taiwanese Identity as a Global Identity: The Networks of Skilled Labour Migrants in the UK and Canada.

Many people have pointed to recent nationalisation movements and the worldwide lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic as heralding the end of globalisation. However, these same events have also shown us that globalisation can be resilient and adaptive: and, furthermore, that the migration of ideas and people continues despite pressures to the contrary.

Through a study of Taiwanese skilled labour migrants and their families in the UK and in Canada, and of Taiwan itself as their society of origin, I examine the role identity plays in the network-building and career strategies of Taiwanese people overseas, and how their seemingly local identities as “Taiwanese” allow them to construct world-spanning networks. This process gives us insight into how, and why, globalisation processes continue to flourish despite pressures to localise, as well as into the ways in which Taiwan is developing as a player on the world business stage.