(Updated 9/2007)

Introduction: I am a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, currently residing in Philadelphia, PA. I am writing my dissertation and expect to graduate Spring 2008.

Areas of Interest: Globalization & Development; Gender; Labor; Immigration; Work & Organizations; Economic Sociology; Political Sociology.

Dissertation: Behind Great Walls: Tolerated Illegal Migration and the Construction Industry

Abstract:

Based on intensive ethnographic observation of illegal migrant labor in the construction industry in China, this dissertation does three things: it explores and categorizes the different types of labor markets and employment relations among these workers, it compares the labor market and employment configurations in Beijing and Guangzhou and finally, it explains the differences. First, I describe and explore three different modes of employment: mediated, embedded, and individualized. “Modes of employment” is a variable constructed to capture associations between different types of labor market relations and employment relations. In individualized employment, workers find employment through spot markets; the resulting employment relations are individualistic and increase the potential for exploitation. In embedded employment, illegal migrants not only use social networks to find work but also their jobs are embedded in social networks. In embedded employment, mechanisms such as social capital, bounded solidarity, enforceable trust, and the reciprocity of social networks shape employment relations. In mediated employment, workers use a variety of means including social networks to find jobs with labor contractors but the employment relationships are structured and shaped by the contract labor system. Along with gender and locality/ethnicity the different modes of employment powerfully shape the migration experience and the boundaries of toleration. Second, the dissertation provides a comparison of employment configurations of illegal migrant construction workers in two cities, Beijing and Guangzhou. In both cities there is individualized, embedded, and mediated employment. However, in Beijing, the majority of workers are concentrated in mediated employment while in Guangzhou the majority of workers are concentrated in embedded employment. Finally, I explore this variance and argue that it can be explained by the different levels (intensity) and type of state regulation of both the labor market and of the migrant population. In Beijing, the state plays a much more intrusive role in regulating and policing migrant labor which leads to more of the mediated employment; in Guangzhou there is a more relaxed and permissive form of state disciplining of these relations, with this more diffused form of “tolerated illegality” embedded employment becomes dominant.

Committee Members: Gay Seidman, Erik Olin Wright, Myra Marx Ferree , Edward Friedman