Research: Media representations of Chinese labour mobility

I recently ran across a book chapter entitled “Media representations of investment and labour in Alberta’s resourceeconomy” by Cassiano, Dorow and Schmidt. This chapter examines how two different discourses about Chinese transnational mobility related to Alberta’s oil sands are represented in two newspapers (2007 to 2013), these being direct foreign investment and temporary labour.

The nub of it is that investment = good and labour mobility = bad. The threat posed by Chinese workers and business practices to the social and political fabric of Canada makes Chinese transnational mobility threatening while, at the same time, valourizing Canadian values and practices. The result is a racist othering, primarily of Chinese workers.

-- Bob Barnetson