Description
Book SynopsisAn ethnography of class dynamics and the subject formation of migrant domestic workers. It explores what the migrant domestic workers mean to the families that hire them, to urban economies, to rural provinces such as Anhui, and to the Chinese state.
Trade Review“
New Masters, New Servants offers a sweeping critique of China’s reforms. It is politically and ideologically engaged, packed with insightful and brilliant discussions of relations between ‘state and market, countryside and city, mental and manual work, and gender and domesticity’. . . . [Yan’s book is] a good read for those eager to understand developments in China over the last two decades.” - Shiling McQuaide,
Labour/Le Travail“
New Masters, New Servants is a sharp and brilliant book on many conceptual and methodological fronts. . . . For anyone who is interested in discovering the strange contours and texture of neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics, and its impact on individuals from one of the most marginalized social groups, this book is a must-read. For students and researchers in the fields of gender, consumption studies, critical development studies, migration, labor and, above all, subaltern subjectivity, this book is also a source of inspiration and intellectual satisfaction.” - Wanning Sun,
The China Journal“Yan’s new volume is both thought-provoking and entertaining. Clearly, the
face of a globalizing China cannot be understood without a focus on the
plight of migrant workers. This book is a timely contribution that provides
that lens.” - Ingrid Neilson,
Pacific Affairs“This provocative and challenging book will be a must-read for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates in anthropology, Asian Studies, cultural studies and critical theory, as well as for scholars seeking a though-provoking account of the metamorphosis of labour, class and subjectivity concomitant with postsocialism in China.” - Arianne Gaetano,
Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology“It is this ethnographic work that makes the book an invaluable addition to the study of gender, labour, class, rural/urban relations and ‘development’ in China. It allows Yan to present a nuanced and insightful discussion of these subjects and to offer a compelling critique of the teleology of ‘development’ usually given uncritical primacy in contemporary Chinese discourse.” - Jason Young,
New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies“
New Masters, New Servants is the best book to date on migrant labor, gendered domestic labor, and capitalist transformation in China. It is politically and theoretically engaged, full of brilliant insights into the new logics of capitalism and neoliberalism in China, and packed with wonderfully told ethnographic stories, anecdotes, and vignettes. A must read.”—
Ralph A. Litzinger, author of
Other Chinas: The Yao and the Politics of National Belonging
“
New Masters, New Servants is unique in its scope and ambition. One has the sense that Yan Hairong has really penetrated through several layers of mystification to see the inner workings of Chinese postsocialism and of neoliberalism at large. And through her sensitive and impassioned ethnographic engagement, she has animated the issues with lovingly rendered treatments of the circumstances and subject formation of domestic workers.”—
Louisa Schein, author of
Minority Rules: The Miao and the Feminine in China’s Cultural Politics“
New Masters, New Servants is a sharp and brilliant book on many conceptual and methodological fronts. . . . For anyone who is interested in discovering the strange contours and texture of neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics, and its impact on individuals from one of the most marginalized social groups, this book is a must-read. For students and researchers in the fields of gender, consumption studies, critical development studies, migration, labor and, above all, subaltern subjectivity, this book is also a source of inspiration and intellectual satisfaction.” -- Wanning Sun * The China Journal *
“
New Masters, New Servants offers a sweeping critique of China’s reforms. It is politically and ideologically engaged, packed with insightful and brilliant discussions of relations between ‘state and market, countryside and city, mental and manual work, and gender and domesticity’. . . . [Yan’s book is] a good read for those eager to understand developments in China over the last two decades.” -- Shiling McQuaide * Labour/Le Travail *
“This provocative and challenging book will be a must-read for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates in anthropology, Asian Studies, cultural studies and critical theory, as well as for scholars seeking a though-provoking account of the metamorphosis of labour, class and subjectivity concomitant with postsocialism in China.” -- Arianne Gaetano * Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology *
“Yan’s new volume is both thought-provoking and entertaining. Clearly, the face of a globalizing China cannot be understood without a focus on the plight of migrant workers. This book is a timely contribution that provides that lens.” -- Ingrid Neilson * Pacific Affairs *
Table of ContentsPreface vii
Introduction 1
1. The Emaciation of the Rural: "No Way Out" 25
2. Mind and Body, Gender and Class 53
Part I. "Intellectuals' Burdens" and Domestic Labor 57
Part II. Searching for the Proper Baomu 80
Intermezzo 1. A Survey of Employers 109
3.
Suzhi as a New Human Value: Neoliberal Governance of Labor Migration 111
Intermezzo 2. Urban Folklore on Neoliberalism 139
4. A Mirage of Modernity: Pas de Deux of Consumption and Production 145
5. Self-Development and the Specter of Class 187
Intermezzo 3. Diary and Song 217
6. The Economic Law and Liminal Subjects 221
Notes 251
References 287
Index 307
