Digital empowerment for rural migrant students in China: Identity, investment, and digital literacies beyond the classroom

Drawing upon Darvin and Norton’s (2015) model of investment, this article examines how Xing and Jimmy (both pseudonyms) as two male Chinese English as a foreign language learners from rural migrant backgrounds negotiate their identities and assemble their social and cultural resources to invest in autonomous digital literacies for language learning and the assertion of a legitimate place in urban spaces. Employing a connective ethnographic design, this study collected data through interviews, reflexive journals, digital artifacts, and on-campus observations. Data were analyzed using an inductive thematic approach as well as within- and cross-case data analysis methods. The findings indicate that Xing and Jimmy experienced a profound sense of alienation and exclusion as they migrated from under-resourced rural spaces to the urban elite field. The unequal power relations in urban classrooms subjected them to marginalized and inadequate rural identities by denying them the right to speak and be heard. However, engaging with digital literacies in the wild allowed these migrant learners to access a wide range of linguistic, cultural, and symbolic resources, empowering them to reframe their identities as legitimate English speakers. The acquisition of such legitimacy enabled them to challenge the prevailing rural–urban exclusionary ideologies to claim the right to speak. This article closes by offering implications for empowering rural migrant students as socially competent members of the Chinese higher education system in the digital age.