Beyond Tears and Laughter: Gender, Migration, and the Service Sector in China (New Perspectives on Chinese Politics and Society)

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. This book explores the experience of China's migrant laborers in Shanghai from economic, 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 explores the political, economic, and gendered realities of this marginalized, yet huge population. With an in-depth and multidisciplinary examination of the experience of restaurant workers in Shanghai, this book sheds humanizing new light on the experience of the megacity from the inside and will be of direct value to policymakers, demographers, urbanists, anthropologists, sociologists, and responsible citizens. 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 migrant housing and informal settlement in China.-- Provided by publisher Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii Introducing Migration, Gender and the Service Sector (Yang Shen)....Pages 1-28 Gendered Subjectivities in a Patriarchal China (Yang Shen)....Pages 29-46 Working in a Gendered, Feminised and Hierarchical Workplace (Yang Shen)....Pages 47-71 The Short-Lived Jobs: From Beginning to End (Yang Shen)....Pages 73-94 Negotiating Intimacy: Obedience, Compromise and Resistance (Yang Shen)....Pages 95-126 Crafting a Modern Person via Consumption? Women and Men in Leisure Activities (Yang Shen)....Pages 127-149 Unpacking the Complexity of Gender, Class and Hukou (Yang Shen)....Pages 151-162 Back Matter ....Pages 163-215