The Institute for Guangdong Qiaoxiang Studies in Wuyi University is traced to The Wuyi Culture and Overseas Chinese Research Office that was established in 1994. For more than 20 years, the Institute for Guangdong Qiaoxiang Studies has been committed to the theoretical and applied research on the cultural heritage and its protection of Qiaoxiang, the compilation and study of Qiaoxiang documents, the history and culture of Qiaoxiang, as well as the design and application of characteristic crafts in Qiaoxiang, which has made it achieve important social benefits and have remarkable academic influence. The institute was the chief expert unit of declaring “Kaiping Diaolou and Villages” as World Cultural Heritage and “Qiaopi and Yinxin - - Correspondence and Remittance Documents from Overseas Chinese” as Memory of the World, and it is also the only academic unit for the preparation and exhibition of “Jiangmen Wuyi Museum of Overseas Chinese”.

The Institute for Guangdong Qiangxiang Studies also attaches importance to international academic exchange and has set up such an international academic platform for “International Migration and Qiaoxiang Studies” ( one session every two years ). From 2010 to 2018, we have held five international symposiums on this theme with different overseas universities, including UCLA, San Francisco State University, University of Queensland, CUHK, Bridgewater State University, UBC and Nagasaki University. By discussing and studying Qiaoxiang in the background of international migration, and comparing international migration from China and from other countries, we strive to build an academic exchange platform containing Chinese feature, Qiaoxiang characteristics and international level.

In 2013 and 2016, the Institute for Guangdong Qiangxiang Studies held two international symposiums on “Transnational Migration Letters” with the Immigration History Center in University of Minnesota, USA. These two conferences discussed the similarities and differences of transnational migration letters in different countries, the academic ethics and legal issues in the use of those letters, and the value and limitations of big data theory and methods in the study of transnational migration letters.

Since 2014, the Institute for Guangdong Qiaoxiang Studies and the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford University had carried out the academic research on the history of Chinese railroad workers’ participation in the construction of the American Transcontinental Railway, including jointly conducting archaeological researches in Qiaoxiang, cooperating in writing the The Transnational Lives of Chinese Railroad Workers: Material Culture Research from a Guangdong Province Qiaoxiang and Railroad Worker Camp Sites in North America, and compiling and translating Why and How - - Why the Chinese Emigrate, and the Means They Adopt for the Purpose of Reaching America (1871), co-hosting the ‘International Symposium on the Transnational Life of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America”, in honor of the history of Chinese railroad workers and their mind of mutual learning.

The Institute for Guangdong Qiaoxiang Studies is looking forward to having more opportunity to cooperate with other academic institutions and scholars at home and abroad in the future, and making more in-depth academic discussions on “Qiaoxiang culture” from different academic directions and with multidisciplinary approaches.