Beyond Tears and Laughter
Gender, Migration, and the Service Sector in China
Published on 22. February 2019
Book
Hardback
XVII, 215 pages
978-981-13-5816-6 (ISBN)
Description
This book explores the experience of China's migrant labourers in Shanghai from anthropological, and gendered analyses, offering extraordinary insights into the life-world of the marginalized people. China has hundreds of millions of internal migrants coming from the countryside to the big cities in search of fame, fortune, or just a living. The author also examines the gender dynamics at work, in intimacy and leisure of this marginalized, yet huge population. With an in-depth and multidisciplinary examination of the experience of restaurant workers in Shanghai, this book sheds humanising new light on the experience of the megacity from the inside and will be of direct value to policymakers, demographers, feminist scholars, anthropologists, sociologists, and responsible citizens.
Reviews / Votes
"The book provides a good example of nuanced fieldwork observations and ethnographic details based on a longitudinal field investigation . . Readers will appreciate the rich details of daily interactions and benefit from the grassroots knowledge about migrant workers in China's metropolitan service sector. With its in-depth analysis of migrant workers' life and subjectivity, this is an excellent book for people who are interested in gender, migration, work and China studies more generally." (Jing Song, The China Quarterly, February 21, 2022)More details
Series
Edition
2019 ed.
Language
English
Place of publication
Singapore
Singapore
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
16 s/w Abbildungen
XVII, 215 p. 16 illus.
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
423 gr
ISBN-13
978-981-13-5816-6 (9789811358166)
DOI
10.1007/978-981-13-5817-3
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2019
1st Edition
Palgrave Macmillan
€53.49
Available for download
Person
Yang Shen
, with a PhD from the London School of Economics, is an assistant professor at School of International and Public Affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her work explores individual experiences of Chinese migrant workers within the contemporary globalized economy. Her current research focuses on housing and intimacy, online dating, and women's fertility practices under the changing family planning policy in China.
Content
1. Introducing migration, gender and service sector.- 2. Gendered subjectivities in a patriarchal China.- 3. Working in a gendered, feminised and hierarchical workplace.- 4. The shortlived jobs: from beginning to end.- 5. Negotiating intimacy: obedience, compromise and resistance.- 6. Crafting a modern person via consumption? Women and men in leisure activities.- 7. Unpacking the complexity of gender, class and hukou.