Peasant Workers and the New Working Class：On Contemporary Class Issues in China

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Publication Date｜2018-11-01

Authors｜PUN Ngai, Yuan SHEN, Jie MENG, Yile LI, Yan REN, Huilin LU, Yuhua GUO, Binhuan HUANG, Zongzhi HUANG, Guanghuai ZHENG, Huipeng ZHANG, Yi XU, Xin TONG, Mingjie HE, Xian ZHANG, Jianhua WANG, Linchuan QIU

Press｜National Chiao Tung University Press

ISBN｜9789869622042333

Synopsis

A Microcosm of Chinese Social Reform—
Labor Conflicts, Worker Protests, and Class Solidarity:
Challenges to the Foundation of “Harmonious” Society in China

The new working class is a result of the changing labor relations and institutions in Chinese society. It takes center stage amid these transformations, and epitomizes the array of social conflicts caused by thirty years of reformation.

With the arrival of the “world’s factory” and “big construction site,” we have witnessed the birth and rapid growth of a bourgeoisie class supported by real estate and industrial capital. The bourgeoisie quickly became the leader of social relations in our age. We have also witnessed the struggles for survival of the new laborers, and the difficult battle fought to establish a new working class.

Most authors in this book were inspired by the first-hand experience of activists. During field research, the authors have witnessed countless wage protests and strikes that provide hope for united struggles through class conflicts. The authors engage with existing class theories while also produce research that promise to be more radical and organic from the authors’ “down-to-earth” observation of the life and labor of workers and the lower class. From various angles, the seventeen articles in this collection reflect the formation of the new working class since the reformation in China. The book is divided into three sections: Part I—Introduction: Debates about the Formation of the New Working Class; Part II—The Dialectic of the Semi-proletariat and the Proletariat; Part III—Power of the Working Class: Empirical Evidence and Debates.

※Endorsement
Jieh-min WU (Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica), Yong Yi WU (Graduate Institute of Studies in Documentary and Film Archiving, Tainan National University of the Arts), Thung-Hong LIN (Institute of Sociology, Acadmia Sinica), Shu-fen LIN (Institute for Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Chiao Tung University), Susan Su-hsiang Chen (Taiwan International Workers’ Association), Hsin-Hsing CHEN (Graduate Institute for Social Transformation Studies, Shih Hsin University), De-bei HUANG (Graduate Institute for Social Transformation Studies, Shih Hsin University), Joyce C.H. Liu (Institute for Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Chiao Tung University), Pei-Chia LAN (Department of Sociology, National Taiwan University)

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Editors |

PUN Ngai received her PhD in Anthropology from The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She is currently Professor at the Department of Sociology, Hong Kong University. Her work focuses on Chinese workers, migration, gender, and the history of socialism. Her publications include Migrant Labor in China: Post-Socialist Transformation, Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace, and Migrant Labor in China: Post-Socialist Transformations. She is the winner of the C. Wright Mills Award for her book Made in China in 2005, making her the first Asian scholar to receive the award. The book has been translated into French, German, Italian, Polish, and Chinese. Her articles appear in Current Sociology, The China Quarterly, Work, Employment and Society, The China Journal, Information, Communication & Society. She has co-written and co-edited works such as On the Big Construction Site: Song of the Chinese Peasant Workers (co-authored with Huilin LU and Huipeng Zhang), I Am at Foxconn (co-authored with Huilin LU and Yuhua GUO), The Serial Jumps Behind Foxconn’s Success (co-authored with Yuan SHEN, Yuhua GUO, and Huilin LU), and Dying for Apple: Foxconn and Chinese Workers (co-authored with Jenny Chan and Mark Seldon).

Jie MENG is Distinguished Professor at Fudan University. He is editor in chief at the CSSCI Journal of Politics and Economy. He has visited the Department of Economics at the University of Manchester, Graduate Institute of Economics at Kyoto University, and The United Nations University—Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology. He has been Professor at the School of Economics, Renmin University of China, and the Graduate Institute of Economics at School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University. His publications include Historical Materialism and Marxian Economics and Value and Accumulation Theory. His articles appear in Social Sciences in China, Economic Research, World Economy, and China Review of Political Economy. He translated Power and Money: A Marxist Theory of Bureaucracy (by Ernest Mandel, co-translated with Minqi LI) and Understanding Capitalism: Competition, Command, and Change (by Samuel Bowles, Richard Edwards, and Frank Roosevelt; co-translated with Zhun ZHAO and Hua YU). He has also published the book series Evolution and Innovation: Translated Works in Economics (2007, Renmin University of China Publishing House) as series editor.

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Table of Contents |

Preface PUN Ngai
Part I—Introduction: Debates about the Formation of the New Working Class
Social Transformation and the Re-formation of the Working Class –Yuan SHEN
Development in the Commodification of Labor and Employment Relations: From the Perspectives of Polányi and Marx –Jie MENG, Yile LI
Peasant Workers as Metaphor: The Unfinished Proletarianization –PUN Ngai, Yan REN
“Chinese Characteristics” of the World’s Factory: A Sociological Overview of the Labor Condition in the New Age –Yuhua GUO, Binhuan HUANG
Second-Generation Peasant Workers’ Identity, Affect, and Collective Action in Contemporary China –Huilin LU, PUN Ngai
Spatial Politics in International Migrant Labor: Dorm Labor in the Age of Globalization –Yan REN, PUN Ngai
Refamiliarizing with the Chinese Labor Class –Zongzhi HUANG

Part II—The Dialectic of the Semi-proletariat and the Proletariat
Inventing a Subgenre of Struggle in Contemporary China: The Scream, Nightmare, and Rebellion of a Female Factory Worker –PUN Ngai
Disabled Peasant Worker: A Group that Resists Empowerment –Guanghuai ZHENG
The Formation of Class: Labor Control and Collective Struggle of Construction Workers on the Construction Site –PUN Ngai, Huipeng ZHANG, Huilin LU
Monopolizing Capital and Chinese Workers: The Foxconn Factory System as an Example –PUN Ngai, Yi XU
Labor and Labor Relations in China’s Service Industry: On Labor and Labor Relations in Star-rated Hotels –Xin TONG
Labor Process and the Differentiation of Sisterhood: A Case Study on Female Migrants in China –Mingjie HE

Part III—Power of the Working Class: Empirical Evidence and Debates
The Nature, Causes, and Policy Recommendations for Strikes in Contemporary China –Xian ZHANG
Struggles of Peasant Workers and Transformations in Labor Relations in Contemporary China –Yuhua GUO, Yuan SHEN, PUN Ngai, Huilin LU
Pragmatism United: Case Study of New Laborer’s Collective Action in Pearl River Delta –Jianhua WANG
Goodbye, i-Slave: Foxconn, Digital Capitalism, and Internet Worker’s Struggles –Linchuan QIU
 

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