The triple migration of the “cyber-pets”: embodied digital labour and multisensory experiences of female live streamers in urban China

Meng-Yun He

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This article examines the triple migration of young female live streamers performing street entertainment in Shenzhen, China. These second-generation rural-to-urban migrants navigate three intersecting trajectories: spatial mobility to urban centres, digital migration onto live-streaming platforms as precarious workplaces, and embodied negotiation of liminality where their bodily experiences blur online-offline boundaries. Drawing on multisensory ethnographic fieldwork, this study explores how sensory experiences, platform governance and systemic inequalities shape these women's precarious livelihoods. Beneath their public performances lie burnout, stigma and hidden injuries of inequality. By situating these women's experiences at the intersection of class, gender, rural-urban migration and platform capitalism, this research uncovers the intimate cost of precarious digital labour. It also highlights their resilience and creativity in navigating structural barriers. This study contributes to empirical and theoretical discussions on gendered labour, digital precarity and affective politics of precarity in contemporary urban China.

Keywords: multisensory ethnography; rural-to-urban migration; platform gendered labour; digital precarity; embodied liminality; structural inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2025-10-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-iue, nep-sea and nep-ure
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Published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2, October, 2025, pp. 1-22. ISSN: 0141-9870

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