APRD Summary for Week 15 Ronald M.

Castillo 堡明君 (110265506)

Intersections

It is migration week and I chose Liu’s (2019) “Chinese Migrant Wives in Taiwan” and Ehmer
& Kothari’s (2021) “Malaysia and Rohingya” Both chosen for my passion for topics on
people at the margins. The first one specifically targets my research interest in gender
studies, both contributing to my methodological pathway on the use of ethnological tools.

I am not sure though if the materials are easier to gut this week or if it is because of my
familiarity with migration studies. What we can observe though, is not just in Liu (2019) and
in Ehmer & Kothari (2021), but even in the other readings, are clarity and directness in the
language of conveying their ideas. I would not completely laud them in terms of manner or
form though. Both have designs on how their methods were done, but somehow lacked the
cues that sum up the argument. We can hedge this though through the clarity of the
abstracts and the methodological section in each of these two journal articles.

Lui (2019) interviewed 24 Chinese migrants married to Taiwanese husbands. The qualitative
data was treated to conceptualize the variations of migrant wives accepting or rejecting
citizenship. In comparison, Ehmer & Kothari (2021) qualitatively treated 1,133 news reports
from the Malaysian Government-affiliated newspaper, The Star. This resulted in a sifted set
of frames on how the Rohingya were politically painted in that particular periodical’s
reports. Both articles richly discussed the abstract concepts of migrant lives; however, no
tool showed the fruit of coding. Yes, these articles were working, but they could have been
made better if at the very least a simulacrum has been used at the onset of the discussion.
For one, it provides evidence of the coding, without it, the narratives simply look like stories
with citations with the possibility of cherry-picked evidence. Second is that not all readers
are comfortable with all paragraph discussions and seek the need for diagrams and
illustrations, which is an important thing when we are speaking of abstract things.

Ehmer & Kothari’s (2021) findings argued how “government media bias influences” news
frames (p. 381). It is an affirmation of an existing tenet within the field, as mentioned in their
conclusion. I appreciate how they hedged their conclusion by addressing the limitations of
their study, particularly in the use of only one news agency. Liu’s (2019) puzzle on the
evolution of migrant wives as commodities to citizens led to explanations on acceptance and
rejection of citizenship, in this case, Chinese women to Taiwanese.

These two articles’ works do not simply inform me on the clarity of qualitative designs, but
Ehmer & Kothari (2021) point out avenues of publications. I surmise that given the lack of
universality of their findings, and that this undertaking contributed to a drop in the pool of
migrant discourse by focusing on an argument that borders on being tautologous, the
findings find purchase in a journal that focuses on the plight of refugees.

I love the lesson coming from Liu (2019) since it contributes a substantial argument to my
queer studies dissertation tract. Intersectionality is an advocative term I am becoming more
used to. Liu’s findings on how intersectionality contributes to an agency within the person,
whereas within queer 101 can be a source of inequality is a rich vein for my argument on the
gay fairy tale (more on this when I present/write my finals paper).