The impact of citizenship on labour process: state, capital and labour control in South China

Thomas Peng

Work, Employment & Society, 2011, vol. 25, issue 4, 726-741

Abstract: Sweatshops remain scattered around southern China where scholars have explored the despotic nature of labour control. However, an anomalous case of factory regime was found in Hengfa, a handbag manufacturing factory. This article studies workers’ voluntary and hard-working attitude toward work, the institutional arrangement that organizes such workers’ interests, as well as the broader context that generates workers’ consent toward these institutional arrangements. First, the residential-working compound of Hengfa and the dormitory curfew have shaped the labour process into a game pursuing leisure time outside of the factory. Second, China’s household registration system (hukou) has determined inner-migrant workers’ residential status, making them rely on entrance guards and curfew as a protection for personal safety, and therefore has constructed the workers’ consent toward the curfew. Based on this analysis, a particular type of state-capital interrelation and its effect on the labour process can be found.

Keywords: China; citizenship; factory regime; household registration; hukou; labour process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:25:y:2011:i:4:p:726-741

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