Book Review
under three thematic sections: i) “Migra-
Wind Over Water: Migration in an East
Asian Context. By David W. Haines, Keiko
Yamanaka and Shinji Yamashita (eds).
New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012.
CCLXX, 270 pages. $95.00/£60.00
JAMES COATES
Waseda University
The edited compilation Wind Over Water is
a timely contribution to the field of migra-
tion studies that raises many issues within
the study of mobility. Moving away from
the rich ethnography on mobility in South-
East Asia, it demonstrates the importance of
North-East Asia to recent debates surround-
ing migration, providing a wide selection of
interdisciplinary ethnographic case studies
that open several theoretical and methodo-
logical questions. Within its 16 edited chap-
ters, Wind Over Water also showcases the
range of expertise coming from scholars
either based on, or originally from, the East
Asia region. Inverting the predominance of
Anglo-European scholarship in this area
and allowing for new linguistically
grounded studies, it draws attention to new
sites of ethnographic inquiry that until
recently have not been explored.
Wind Over Water starts with an
excellent overview of recent migration in
the East Asia region by David Haines,
Shinji Yamashita, and J.S. Eades. This
overview makes a strong argument for the
importance of East Asian migration to
wider debates within migration and mobil-
ity studies. It shows how recent increases
in wealth, the articulation between internal
and external migration, and often rigid
visa systems make East Asia a unique con-
text to reflect on wider themes within dis-
courses surrounding transnationalism and
globalization. The outline is also relatively
short, while remaining comprehensive,
making it good introductory reading for
those new to the field.
© 2015 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved.
262 IMR Volume 49 Number 1 (Spring 2015):262–263
Wind Over Water is structured
tion, States, and Cities,” ii) “Family, Gen-
der, Lifestyle, and Culture,” and iii)
“Work, Ethnicity, and Nationality.” Each
chapter within these three sections is rela-
tively short, allowing the book’s ethno-
graphic spread to be vast, but at times
leaving the reader yearning for more.
Nonetheless, its impressive range intro-
duces readers to a multitude of move-
ments, both inside and outside the
national borders of Japan, China, Viet-
nam, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea.
Several chapters also provide examples of
movements that as of yet have had little
written about them. Particularly, new top-
ics include Gordon Mathews’s account of
African traders in Hong Kong, Kwang Ky-
ung Yeo’s description of Beijing’s “Korea-
town,” and Masako Kudo’s ethnography
on the vicissitudes of mobility and child
rearing in Pakistani–Japanese marriages.
This edited compilation’s greatest
strength is the way it demonstrates the
methodological innovations afforded by
interdisciplinary approaches, allowing
migration scholars to jump between multi-
ple scales. It connects issues surrounding
visa policies and history to migrant experi-
ences and will be of use not only for
researchers but also for policy developers
and advocacy groups. Hy Luong’s chapter
on narratives and migration in Vietnam
makes an argument for the use of multiple
methods of data collection. Luong con-
ducted household surveys and compared
the migration narratives of those who had
moved and their relatives left behind.
Through this comparison, Luong paints a
complex picture of the multiple justifica-
tions and contradictions in the ways peo-
ple narrate their experience of migration.
Xiang Biao posits a similar method-
ological challenge in his description of
conducting “multilevel ethnography.” Biao
focuses on Chinese migration throughout
the East Asia region, conducting what he
calls a “super”-multisited analysis. He con-
ducted interviews with over two-hundred
DOI: 10.1111/imre.12180
 BOOK REVIEW
participants from a wide range of back-
grounds, which he uses to problematize
the simplistic description of migration pol-
icy. He achieves this through a careful
analysis of what he calls the “disparate
institutions” that develop and administer
such policies. In particular, Biao provides
some exciting analysis of institutional slang
which is sure to pique the interest of
China studies scholars and gives some
practical advice on negotiating the multi-
ple hierarchies which structure Chinese
migration.
Nicolas Lainez’s chapter demon-
strates the importance of historical analysis
to migration studies methodology. He pro-
vides a moving account of historical forms
of human trafficking in Vietnam and com-
pares them to the contemporary trade in
human bodies. Relativizing recent moral
panics surrounding contemporary human
trafficking, Lainez argues for more careful
attention to the underlying political and
economic problems which produce these
flows, rather than positing it as a “new”
263
problem. His chapter shows the impor-
tance of historical analysis in understand-
ing mobility and reminds migration
scholars not to overemphasise the “new-
ness” of mobility in the current era.
One shortcoming of Wind Over
Water is the age of data found in some of
its chapters. Much of the ethnography is
almost a decade old, leaving the reader
wondering how these flows have changed
in the past ten years. Considering the
rapid changes and mobilities of the East
Asia region, this significant time gap leaves
many questions about recent migration
unanswered. This minor flaw, however, is
perhaps symptomatic of the difficulties of
studying migration in East Asia, one of
the fastest-changing regions in the world.
Despite this shortcoming, Wind Over
Water is the most up-to-date edited com-
pilation on migration in East Asia, success-
fully raises a range of theoretical and
methodological issues, and shines the spot-
light on new fields of inquiry that will
surely spur further research.