Many of the millions of workers streaming in from rural China to jobs at urban factories soon find themselves in new kinds of poverty and oppression. Yet, their individual experiences are far more nuanced than popular narratives might suggest. Rural Origins, City Lives probes long-held assumptions about migrant workers in China. Drawing on fieldwork in Nanjing, Roberta Zavoretti argues that many rural-born urban-dwellers are—contrary to state policy and media portrayals—diverse in their employment, lifestyle, and aspirations. Working and living in the cities, such workers change China’s urban landscape, becoming part of an increasingly diversified and stratified society. Zavoretti finds that—more than thirty years after the Open Door Reform—class formation, not residence status, is key to understanding inequality in contemporary China.
Table of Content
Introduction: The Paradigm of Rural to Urban
Migration in Contemporary China
1. Who Is a “Peasant Worker”?
2. Speaking of Oneself
3. A Place of Encounters
4. Earning, Spending, Consuming
5. Negotiating Success
Conclusion: Making Place, Making Class
About the author
Roberta Zavoretti is a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. She received her Ph D in social anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 2012. This is her first book.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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