Polyrhythmic transitions in youth mobilities: suspension, fragmentation and entanglement among Chinese working holiday makers in New Zealand and Australia

Luyi Ye

Mobilities, 2025, vol. 20, issue 5, 871-887

Abstract: Inspired by Henri Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis, this article focuses on the complex spatio-temporal dynamics of transnational youth mobility. This study explores the mobility polyrhythms of Chinese working holiday makers (WHMs), shaped by the free yet precarious rhythms of temporary youth labor migration, and the fast-paced, disciplining rhythms of China’s compressed modernity. Through ethnographic observation and interviews with 44 participants, I capture ‘suspension’, ‘fragmentation’, and ‘entanglement’ as important rhythmic transitions in the polyrhythm of Chinese WHMs’ mobilities. This rhythmanalysis reveals how young migrants from a compressed-modernity society navigated between multiple rhythms and socioeconomic patterns to experience and negotiate their uncertain mobile transitions to adulthood in the digital era. By extending rhythmanalysis into migration and mobility contexts, this research contributes a dynamic approach to conceptualising the non-linear and staggered interactions among multiple spaces, temporalities, and social forces in contemporary youth mobility.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2025.2481307

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