Contesting Inequalities : Mediated Labor Activism and Rural Migrant Workers in China

After four decades of market reform, China has developed a fast-growing, prosperous economy―the second largest in the world. Despite this prosperity, social inequality has persisted and expanded, particularly among rural migrant workers, and oppressive labor conditions have given rise to an increase in worker protests. In China's authoritarian political context, worker strikes often face suppression and receive little attention in mainstream media, which has led burgeoning forms of alternative mediated practices to become key, if complicated, components of worker resistance. In Contesting Inequalities, Siyuan Yin traces the historical and structural forces surrounding the plight of migrant workers, especially women workers, and examines the relationship between media and different forms of collective action in China. Moving beyond considerations of short-term strikes, she analyzes how mediated practices have been incorporated as both means and ends in labor activism.

  Based on long-term, multi-sited, and digital ethnography, and drawing on feminist methodologies, Yin examines different forms of mediated labor activism―including theater performance, advocacy music, and digital community media―to survey the politics and impact of worker mobilization and actions. By explicating how mediated labor activism has enabled new subjectivities, counter-discourses, and informal networks, Yin demonstrates that the surge in Chinese working-class resistance highlights the interconnectedness of class struggles and feminist activism.

Siyuan Yin is Assistant Professor of Communication at Simon Fraser University.