More Than a Family Reunion: An Ethnographic Study of Chinese Migrant Hosts in Visiting Friends and Relatives Tourism

Abstract: This thesis offers an ethnographic study of the co-present encounters between Chinese migrant hosts and the guests from their home country. It aims to contribute to the qualitative research on the visiting friends and relatives (VFR) phenomenon and to deliver insights to the tourism industry in terms of hosting strategies and the construction of a hospitable space. Taking on the migrant hosts’ perspective, this thesis investigates how hosts receive their guests, how kinship and host-guest relationship are played out simultaneously and how they (re)produce their identities during the co-presence through the constant negotiations between the self and other, the self and the place. Through illustrations of various hosting strategies, the construction of a hospitable space and ultimately the notion of home is articulated against a backdrop of hosts’ transnational life experience. This research demonstrates that, on the one hand, the gesture of hospitality is operated under the guise of the taken-for-granted kinship, while on the other, the role of being a host is enacted when the hospitable space is potentially threatened by the guests’ failure to follow the rules of conduct of being a guest. Besides, it also shows that during the co-presence hosts’ transnational identity is forcibly reflected and reiterated through the manifestation of hospitality and the adjustment of self-positioning in the negotiated kinship. The boundary of making a hospitable space within the hosts’ homes thus becomes fluid and negotiable.