Preliminary Programme

Wed 24 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Thu 25 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Fri 26 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Sat 27 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.00

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Friday 26 March 2021 16.00 - 17.15
Q-12 LAB10b Labour Precariousness, Home Economics and Social Policy II
Q
Network: Labour Chair: Bernard Thomann
Organizers: Sayaka Sakoda, Bernard Thomann Discussants: -
Eric Florence : Making Precariousness Visible in Post-Mao China : the Case of a Grassroots Rural Workers’ Museum
This paper offers an ethnographic investigation of a rural migrant workers museum initiated in 2008 and located in the suburbs of Beijing (the “New Workers Art and Culture Museum”). After having introduced the institutional and ideological context of the museum, I engage with the following questions: How are the ... (Show more)
This paper offers an ethnographic investigation of a rural migrant workers museum initiated in 2008 and located in the suburbs of Beijing (the “New Workers Art and Culture Museum”). After having introduced the institutional and ideological context of the museum, I engage with the following questions: How are the tensions between rural workers’ hope and aspirations for social mobility articulated with deeply entrenched historically and institutionally produced differences in access to wealth and status? How do the exhibitions performed in the museum represent and engage with class differences and finally how does the ethics of recognition which informs these exhibitions articulate with the various layers of public and elite culture accounting for social mobility in post-Mao China? Drawing on ethnographic observation and on visual analysis, as well as on the study of a wide variety of sources of “popular culture/archive” (such as workers’ written narration of their condition, pay slips, electricity bills, workers’ records of overtime work and drawings of injured bodies, etc.), I show how the combinations of official and more grassroots texts (from official regulation of labour, residency, and mobility to workers’ narration of their experience of subalternity at the workplace), of a wide array of objects and of workers’ visual representation of their condition and identity convey at once a core meaning of “collective embodied indignity” and make visible claims for a more inclusive regime of recognition and citizenship, i.e. thereby asserting their legitimate rights to minimal state social and institutional support, as well as decent employment (Butler 2013). The paper will eventually discuss its insights against those of studies on working-class representation through museums in Europe and the United-States. (Show less)

Gilles Guiheux : Chinese Garment Workers Wages and Expenses
The paper is based on a survey carried by the author in several parts of the country. Workers are employed in both large enterprises manufacturing for international markets and in small and medium sized enterprises manufacturing for the Chinese domestic market. The aim of the survey is to have a ... (Show more)
The paper is based on a survey carried by the author in several parts of the country. Workers are employed in both large enterprises manufacturing for international markets and in small and medium sized enterprises manufacturing for the Chinese domestic market. The aim of the survey is to have a more comprehensive picture on the daily living needs of workers and their family, and the extent to which these needs are satisfied by the current wage levels.
Several conclusions will be drawn:
(1) Workers get used to low consumption. Food accounts for the largest share of workers’ daily expenses, followed by housing. However, most of them can only afford cheap but poorly maintained accommodation. They seldom buy clothes regularly, and also strictly refrain from excessive grocery shopping and spending on leisure and entertainment. Many workers do not spend on transportation at all by commuting on foot instead of public transport, except visiting their hometown once a year.
(2) Workers invest heavily in particularly healthcare and family financial burden. Workers with low income sacrifice their personal life quality to meet their family needs, trying.
(3) Social security fails to ease the financial burden of workers; workers’ capacity to save differ drastically. Social insurance in the four cities does not fully cover the medical needs of all workers, while costs for many services and medication are not reimbursed but self-financed. (Show less)



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