Research
Overview: |
| My research has long focused on labor and/or gender in a global perspective. My earliest graduate work examined transnational labor cooperation, seeking to understand different forms of cooperation, conditions under which cooperation was likely, and factors that influence the outcome. My research partner and I started with a project documenting and analyzing cases in Asia and were later commissioned by the ILO to write a report on transnational labor cooperation in North America. While conducting research on transnational labor cooperation in Asia, I encountered a fascinating paradox: women migrant domestic workers organized successfully although most theories would think it unlikely or even impossible. Investigation of this case study led to my Master’s field research, conducted in both Hong Kong (where the women worked) and the Philippines (where most of them originated). My research explored the innovative organizational forms and strategies these women deployed to gain and protect rights within the national and global context, and was published in the anthology, Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing and Human Rights. My current research explores “tolerated illegality” in the context of China’s massive rural to urban migration, one of the most significant and enduring characteristics of post-reform China. Most studies of migration in China highlight the importance of the hukou system, a unique internal passport system that links citizenship rights and welfare benefits to one’s place of birth. The hukou system, although modified since Mao’s time, still persists, creating a system of “illegal” migration within one country. I consider male migrant construction workers and the “tolerated illegality” that makes them a key element in China’s rapid urbanization. Based on extensive fieldwork, my dissertation makes three important contributions. First, it examines how a macro political and economic institution (the hukou system), translates into meso and micro structures, looking at both the labor markets and the specific jobsites that employ migrant labor. Second, this study shows how different groups of male migrant construction workers are located in the segmented urban labor markets in which they work, exploring differences between the experiences of temporary migrants who are legally registered and the large and growing number of unregistered or illegal “temporary” migrants. “Tolerated illegality” in its various forms is a concept I develop to show how laws create specifically mediated relationships among the state, employers and migrants in China. Third, it looks at men migrants as gendered workers, focusing on their experiences in a crucially gender-segregated field, construction, which is the other side of the female concentration of migrants in China’s export-oriented factories and domestic and service sector work. Although based on my ethnographic research in Beijing and other Chinese cities, this concept builds on other scholarship that examines “illegal” migrants not only as a politically designated category of people but also as a socially produced spatialized (potentially racialized and gendered) relationship that is contested and negotiated (De Genova, 2005; Willen, 2007; Coutin, 200). My ethnographic data explore how, when and where the boundaries of illegality are constructed, contested, and reinforced. I show how illegal migrants are not outside of the law or the state, but rather, their “tolerated illegality” mediates their relationship with the state. This mediation is enacted through collusion among the state, employers, locals and the migrants themselves. In each physical setting I examine in China (“ethnic” enclaves, workplaces and street labor markets) I find that the boundaries of illegality are different, as are the mechanisms of enforcement, efforts of resistance, and the ways in which migration and “illegal migrants” are constructed. By examining how tolerated illegality shapes the labor market and labor processes, my dissertation also fits with research on migration and labor in other countries. Like other authors, I show how race, citizenship, and gender create complicated hierarchies among illegal migrant workers (Thomas, 1985; Wells, 1002; Homes, 2006). I add to these studies through development of the concept of “modes of employment”, as another factor in understanding the differences among groups of migrants. This variable, “modes of employment”, involves both labor market relations and the web of social relationships surrounding production. In my study I identify three different modes of employment among illegal migrant construction workers. My exploration of migrants’ modes of employment shows how illegality shapes the labor process and produces “cheap, flexible labor” among men. The data is primarily based on intensive ethnographic field research. The methodology includes 1) in-depth interviews with migrant workers, managers, NGO workers and government officials, 2) participant observations on jobsites, in enclaves, at NGOs and street labor markets and 3) experience working on three different jobsites. Living and working with migrants provided direct access to evidence that are inaccessible to most researchers. It also enabled me to directly observe the inner workings of these modes of employment, rather than just asking people about them. Finally, my connections to migrants as people rather than just research subjects increased the quality of the interview data. The ethnographic chapters of this dissertation explore how these various modes of employment are related to labor market segments, how they impact the labor processes, and how workers express dissent. Along with gender and locality/ethnicity these modes of employment powerfully shape the migration experience and move the boundaries of toleration. These findings provide a basis from which to conduct comparative studies of illegal or undocumented migrants. Finally, I compare Beijing and Guangzhou, showing how all three modes of employment are present among illegal migrant labor in the construction industry. However, the dominant mode of employment varies. I argue that this variation between the cities is the result of the different levels and types of state regulation of both the labor market and the migrant population. My future research plans include a comparative study of undocumented immigrant construction workers in the United States and China. Current research in this area focuses on the street labor market, specifically, “day laborers.” In the Chinese context, this kind of casual labor represents only one segment of undocumented workers in the industry –the least regulated and smallest sector. My comparative work would move beyond the street corners to other segments of the labor market and explore the different modes through which ‘tolerated illegal’ workers are employed in the US as well. Extending my study to be comparative would allow me to theorize about the more macro aspects of tolerated illegality and labor markets, specifically in trying to explain why and under which conditions are illegal migrants working in which modes of employment. I am currently working on two articles for submission
from this dissertation. The working title for the first article is, Gender
and Migration: Helpless Victims and Perpetrators of Violence which analyzes
the relational aspect of gender that plays a role in defining the migration
process for both men and women in China, albeit in different ways. The
working title for the second article is A Closer Look at Labor Market
Intermediaries: the Labor Contracting System in China's Construction Industry.
This article explores the role of labor contractors in mediating the relationship
between migrants and the state and creating spaces of “tolerated
illegality”. |