Educational Nomadic Families: Transnational Social Reproduction Mobility of Chinese Middle-Income Families in Chiang Mai, Thailand

This study examines the phenomenon of Chinese families bringing their children to attend international schools in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand, over the past 5 years. Positioned as a subgroup within the broader context of Chinese global education migration toward Southeast Asia, this research utilizes semi-structured interviews with 38 sampled families whose children are enrolled in 23 international schools in Chiang Mai. The findings reveal that urban middle-income Chinese families who establish their homes in Chiang Mai through sojourning differ from traditional border-crossing family arrangements associated with accompanied migrants. These families adopt a nomadic, sojourning lifestyle, relocating their households in Chiang Mai through transnational consumption practices. Their motivations go beyond the mere pursuit of international educational certification; rather, they engage in a process of household relocation for familial life-making. The primary motivation for their transnational mobility is to avoid social reproduction risks faced in their place of origin. These urban middle-income families reconfigure their family lives through household sojourning in Chiang Mai to meet their individualized social reproduction needs. This study argues that the mobility of these transnational families represents a form of transnational social reproduction mobility, influenced by post-patriarchal neo-familism.