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Lamb Buddha’s Migrant Workers: Self-Assertion on China’s Urban Fringe

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  • Michael Griffiths

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the everyday practices of individuality among the migrant workers with whom I worked at “Lamb Buddha†, a hotpot restaurant in Anshan City, Liaoning Province, during the summer of 2007. The majority of the data comes from four young men, meaning that the analysis complements extant studies of Chinese female migrant workers by allowing male-gendered inflections of discourse prominence. The paper examines the internal structure of “symbolic boundaries†drawn and managed in judgements, positioning statements, and so forth, attempting to regress the modalities by which these migrants assert themselves, thus showing how individuality arises from a discursive environment structured by relation to similar peers and distinctly different others.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Griffiths, 2010. "Lamb Buddha’s Migrant Workers: Self-Assertion on China’s Urban Fringe," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 39(2), pages 3-37.
    • Handle: RePEc:gig:chaktu:v:39:y:2010:i:2:p:3-37
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    File URL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jcca/article/view/253
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. White, Gordon & Howell, Jude A. & Shang Xiaoyuan,, 1996. "In Search of Civil Society: Market Reform and Social Change in Contemporary China," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198289562.
    2. Baohui Zhang, 2010. "Chinese Foreign Policy in Transition: Trends and Implications," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 39(2), pages 39-68.
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