Xia Peigen is a PhD candidate at the Department of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore, specializing in the transnational migration networks between Asia and Europe. His research explores how cultural and geographical interactions shape social transformations, with a particular focus on southeastern China immigrants and their evolving identities across different regions in the 20th century.
His current project investigates the role of Wenzhou immigrants in constructing the transnational social network between China, Southeast Asia, and Europe from the early 20th century onward.
Singapore, having emerged as a major trading hub in the 19th century, became a crucial economic base for Wenzhou immigrants engaged in the timber trade. While existing scholarship on Chinese migration to Europe has primarily focused on the post-1980s influx following China's economic reforms, Xia Peigen's research highlights an overlooked diasporic route—the migration of Wenzhou immigrants from Singapore to Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. By analyzing how southern Zhejiang immigrants leveraged the timber trade to establish themselves economically in Singapore before moving to Europe, his study challenges the binary perspective that views migration solely through the lens of homeland and host country, which often overlooks the multi-locality of remigration. Instead, it foregrounds Singapore as a critical node in the broader history of modern Chinese migration, emphasizing the dynamic and transregional nature of migrant networks.
In Europe, especially in the Netherlands, Xia Peigen will examine archival materials related to postwar Chinese migration policies, labor regulations, and trade networks housed in institutions such as the Nationaal Archief in The Hague and municipal archives of key cities with early Chinese settlements. He will also conduct interviews with second-generation immigrants and members of Wenzhou and Chinese associations in the Netherlands to understand how early migrants adapted to economic shifts, navigated local policies, and maintained transnational ties with Southeast Asia. Furthermore, fieldwork in cities such as Rotterdam and Amsterdam—historical hubs for Chinese migration—will provide insight into the transformation of commercial networks and community structures over time. During his fellowship at IIAS, Peigen aims to expand this research by examining how economic mobility and trade networks facilitated the remigration of Chinese communities from Southeast Asia to Europe. By engaging with scholars working on migration, diaspora studies, and transnational trade, he hopes to contribute to a deeper understanding of how migration is shaped by economic structures, cultural ties, and geopolitical shifts.