Institute of Taiwan Studies Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

This article adapts Robert Merton’s theory of coping with social strain to revisit the main paradigms in the literature of migrant adaptation. Intersecting this literature with Merton’s theory of coping with social strain and the ideas of emergence and resistance, the authors develop five new ideal types of migrant adaptation: (1) migrant conformity through straight-line assimilation; (2) migrant ritualism through multidirectional assimilation; (3) migrant retreatism through segmented assimilation; (4) migrant innovation through transnationalism; and (5) migrant rebellion through cosmopolitanism. The authors’ typology makes the point that migrant adaptation is a plural and ambiguous process, which needs to be understood and explained to identify the causes and effects of long-term migrant adaptation, integration or non-integration. The results show that these ideal types provide an explanation of how and why many of the paradigms on which the literature on migrant adaptation is based also lead to different forms of migrant non-adaptation.

The intent of this study is to examine the adaptive responses of Hong Kong transmigrants and their transnational and transcultural practices in terms of their consequent behavioral and emotional patterns. Their transnational practices and relative adaptability can be explained with Robert Merton's (1957) “strain theory.” More specifically, the study aims to identify, describe, and explain the variety of behavioral patterns and modes of emotional manifestations of adaptation of Hong Kong returnees, and to identify their individual and collective strategies of adaptation to help them solve their adjustment and integration problems in their adopted countries.