TECHNOMOBILITY IN THE MARGINS: MOBILE PHONES AND YOUNG RURAL WOMEN IN BEIJING

by

Cara Wallis _____________________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (COMMUNICATION)

December 2008

Copyright 2008

Cara Wallis

3341813 Copyright 2008 by Wallis, Cara All rights reserved

2009

3341813

DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to Pamela Lynn Thompson (1961 2007), dear friend, amazing musician, fellow traveler.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is the culmination of many years of scholarship, Chinese language study, and travel in and out of China that could not have been possible without the generosity, knowledge, experience, and friendship of many people, both in the U.S. and in China. First I thank my husband, John, who has provided with me his unwavering love and support throughout my doctoral studies, my fieldwork, and writing up this research. I truly could not have done this project without his constant encouragement, his faith in my abilities, and his dedication to helping me succeed. Through various triumphs as well as disappointments he has always been a source of stability and has helped me to keep my work in perspective within the greater meaning of life. I am also indebted to my parents who have been extremely supportive of my academic career. My father always encouraged me to pursue a Ph.D. and my mothers many calls, cards, and home-cooked meals throughout this process provided emotional and physical sustenance. My two sisters, Inger and Laura, have also been a great source of encouragement, both in L.A. and across the Pacific with cards, phone calls, email, and care packages, always just when I needed them. I am profoundly grateful to have worked with such a wonderful faculty committee through all stages of this project. My chair, Sarah Banet-Weiser, has been an amazing mentor, teacher, and friend. I have learned so much from her about how to think about issues of gender and identity, how to apply theory, and how to conduct fieldwork. She has been tireless in reading drafts, answering questions, and giving advice, and also iii

gave me much needed encouragement when I was in the trenches doing my fieldwork in Beijing. Sandra Ball-Rokeach has also been a constant source of support and I have greatly benefited from her vast experience and knowledge about the field of communication. Manuel Castells added analytical and intellectual rigor to this project, and I have gained much from his theoretical insights into technology and society. Stanley Rosen has been extremely generous in sharing his knowledge about all aspects of China and introducing me to others in the field. I am thankful to other faculty who have provided intellectual and emotional support during my time at USC, including Anne Balsamo, Francois Bar, Mimi Ito, Josh Kun, Larry Gross, Peggy McLaughlin, and Alison Trope, and to peers as well: Deborah Hanan, Becky Herr, Heather Hether, Jingfang Liu, Carrie Anne Platt, and Araba Sey. Many friends also offered their constant encouragement with dinners, drinks, coffees, phone calls, text messages, Facebook pokes and the like: Lucienne Aarsen, Gregory Anderson, Reka Clausen, Nancy Currey, Dydia DeLyser, Melina Dorian, Gaby Solomon, Jenn Vega La Serna, and Jen Teasdale. Judy Marasco has been a great friend, and we have shared so many experiences in and out of China that I feel like her soul is in this project as well. Arianne Gaetano is someone I met shortly before I embarked on this research, and her deep knowledge of China and migrant women as well as her friendship and encouragement at various stages of this project have been indispensable. I am grateful to Jack Qiu as well for sharing his insights into mobile phones and migrant workers.

iv

I am very fortunate to know so many exceptional people in Beijing. Sun Wusan and Bu Wei were both students of mine long ago at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Graduate School English Language Center, and their friendship has been a significant part of my China experience. During my fieldwork I became their student. Bu Wei sponsored my visiting scholar visa at the Institute for Journalism and Communication at CASS, and I could not have undertaken this research without her. She constantly shared with me her knowledge about Chinas migrant population, introduced me to other scholars, and invited me to conferences and to accompany her on research trips. We shared so many cups of coffee while discussing research that she and Starbucks in Beijing will be forever linked in my mind. Sun Wusan graciously translated interview, survey, diary, and consent forms. She helped me read Chinese articles as well and introduced me to the women at one of the hair salons where I spent much of my time in Beijing. She also made me feel part of her family through including me in family dinners and on trips outside of Beijing. Liu Xiaohong was also so supportive at various stages of this research, particularly in helping me to think about identity and autonomy in the Chinese context. Wang Yihongs assistance was also indispensable to numerous aspects of this project, including introducing me to key informants and helping with initial interviews. Xu Yang is a wonderful friend and language tutor. I am thankful to other friends and colleagues in Beijing as well: Liu Yanbin, Cai Yiping, Dai Jing, Jude Payne, Zhang Qi, Sherri Weerheim, Tan Shen, and Guo Liang. I am deeply indebted to Chen Shanshan at the Beijing Cultural Development Center for her kindness and all of her assistance. Without her help, significant portions v

of this research would not have been possible, including my access to the Practical Skills Training Center for Rural Women. I am also extremely grateful to those at the school who welcomed me, and I continue to be moved by their dedication to improving the lives of rural women: Luo Zhao Hong, the director; Chen Hu, the head of education; and Liang Hong Yun, one of the computer instructors. I owe special thanks to Liang Hong Yun for opening up her classroom to me and for helping me to meet her students. Many women at the Migrant Womens Club also have my heartfelt appreciation, including Han Hui Min, Fang Qing Xia, and Luo Zhe Liangliang. I owe special thanks to Jiao Fang Feng for accompanying me to migrant markets to meet rural women and for taking me to a migrant school in Beijing. Li Tao and Li Zhen at the Culture and Communication Center for Facilitators were also crucial to my research. I am so thankful to them for enabling me to participate in numerous activities at Facilitator and for giving me a chance to learn firsthand about migrant workers experience in Beijing. I am also very grateful to other Facilitator staff and members who spent so much of their time answering my questions and who made me feel so welcome. I thank Guo Anru at Planet Finance in Beijing as well. She was so generous and helpful, especially in introducing me to Yan Zheng, the Deputy Director of the Xicheng District Library. There I was able to meet several migrant workers enrolled in a weekly computer class. Thanks to students and friends who helped with translations of difficult academic articles: Luo Xinping, Alex Li, and Johnny Wang.

vi

I am grateful to the Annenberg School for Communication for many forms of financial support. This fieldwork also would not have been possible without a National Resource Center Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) grant, administered by the East Asian Studies Center at the University of Southern California. I received two summer FLAS language study grants as well. USCs Center for Feminist Research also provided generous travel and research funding. Thanks to Grace Ryu, Kin Hau, and Raquel Gutierrez for their administrative help. Finally, words cannot express how indebted I am to all the migrant women who participated in this study. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for sharing with me and teaching me not only about the role of mobile phones in their lives, but also about hope, dignity, and perseverance. They truly changed my life.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICTATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION Introduction Endnotes CHAPTER ONE: MOBILITY AND FLUIDITY: GENDER, IDENTITY, AND TECHNOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTORY FRAMEWORK The Fluidity of Identity Gender Identity Difference and Hybridity Contemporary China: Gender, Class, and Place An Intersectional Framework Theorizing Technology Technological Culture Extending the Social Shaping of Technology The Social Shaping of the Mobile Phone: Communication as Transmission and Ritual The Physical Self and the Presentation of the Self Fashion/Style Social Networks Autonomy Gender Time and Space Research Objective Methodology The Problem with Ethnography Reconciling Ethnography and Experience The Fieldwork Overview of the Chapters Chapter One Endnotes CHAPTER TWO: MARKET REFORMS AND (DIS)CONTINUITY IN POST-SOCIALIST CHINA Hukou and the Urban-Rural Divide Hukou 1955 1978 Economic Reforms and Inequality The Floating Population and Hukou Erosion Chinas Dagongmei ii iii xi 1 8 9 13 15 19 22 24 28 30 32 34 36 38 39 41 42 44 48 49 49 54 57 67 70 80 83 83 87 89 93 viii

Reasons for Migration Types of Employment Prejudice and Discrimination Female Migrants and Suzhi Chinas Consumer Revolution From a Society of Relative Comfort to a Harmonious Society The Construction/Consumption of Femininity in the Post-Mao Era Telecommunications Development in the Reform Era Beginnings Market Socialism and the Telecommunications Revolution The Mobile Revolution Mobile Phone Use in China Conclusion Chapter Two Endnotes CHAPTER THREE: MY FIRST BIG URBAN PURCHASE: MOBILE PHONE AS METONYM FOR MODERNITY Modernity and Modernities Modernity and Difference Foucault, Modern Power, and Gender Modernity, Consumption, and the Self Becoming Modern: Mobile Phone as Metonym for Modernity The Mobile Phone and the Presentation of the Self The Mobile Phone and the Gender of Modernity Modern Skills Conclusion Chapter Three Endnotes CHAPTER FOUR: IMMOBILE MOBILITY: NAVIGATING NETWORKS, SOCIALITY, DESIRE, AND INTIMACY Social Capital and Guanxi Bourdieu and Social Capital The Egocentric Self Guanxi Mobile Phones and the Social World of Migrant Women Expanding Social Networks Enriching Social Networks Pre-written Text Messages with Chinese Characteristics Camera Phones and the Construction of Reality Mobile Phones and Intimate Relationships Marriage Customs in China Migrant Women and the Marriage Dilemma Dating and the Mobile Phone Conclusion Chapter Four Endnotes

94 96 97 100 103 108 109 115 116 118 121 123 129 130 142 145 146 150 154 156 158 164 172 177 179 184 187 188 190 192 196 198 202 205 209 220 220 225 228 241 244 ix

CHAPTER FIVE: TECHNOLOGIES OF FREEDOM?: MOBILE PHONES, RESISTANCE, AND SURVEILLANCE IN THE WORKPLACE Cell Phones and Surveillance in China: A Top-Down View Foucault, Gender, and Resistance Workplace Control, Resistance, and Compliance Socio-techno Resistance Restaurants Marketplaces Mobile Phones and Surveillance The Boutique Assistant The Maintenance Worker Just a Girl: Silence as Surveillance Mobile Phones and Economic Outcomes Does a Mobile Phone Help Increase Income? Mobile Phones and Job Seeking Conclusion Chapter Five Endnotes CONCLUSION Summary of the Findings Significance of the Research Conclusion Endnotes REFERENCES APPENDICES Appendix 1: Interview Questionnaire Appendix 2: Mobile Phone Use Diary

252 256 258 261 263 264 270 276 278 282 285 288 289 293 296 298 302 303 308 316 317 344 346

ABSTRACT This dissertation, the result of 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork, is an exploration of the ways that young rural-to-urban migrant women working in the lowlevel service sector in Beijing engage with mobile phones to negotiate their identity and create meaning in relation to themselves and others in the city. This research is situated within the particular socio-cultural and historical context of Beijing in the new millennium, where nearly three decades of socialism with Chinese characteristics have resulted in an urban, consumer-driven, networked society that exists far removed from rural regions that are discursively constructed as backward and other. Occupying a space in between is a vast population of rural peasants who have journeyed to Chinas cities to seek work and a better life despite extremely difficult conditions that are a result of both structural impediments and cultural prejudices. In such a milieu, young rural women in particular are configured as passive, of low quality, and in need of development. Drawing from theories of the fluidity of identity, hybridity, the social construction of gender, and Foucaultian notions of power and discourse, this research uses an intersectional framework that considers gender, class, and place to understand migrant womens diverse engagement with and understanding of mobile phones. For the women in this study, mobile phones become key signifiers of urban modernity and citizenship in Chinas burgeoning consumer society. They are also linked to modern notions of essentialized femininity and as such are associated with gendered discourses and practices. In addition, cell phones enrich and expand social networks and open up new possibilities for dating and intimacy. At the same time, xi

mobile phones can create new disciplinary practices that lead to exclusion, and employers use mobile phones as a method of control. This study adds to the body of scholarship that insists that practices and understandings of new communication technologies must be studied not only among a certain age group or gender, but also as these are intricately connected to and arise within a particular discursive context. In this way, we gain a richer understanding of technological culture.

xii

INTRODUCTION Our flight had been delayed, and after a wild and crazy bus ride from the airport to the train station screeching tires, incessant horn honking, driver (presumably) swearing we boarded the train for the 17-hour ride from Beijing to Changchun in Chinas northeast. We each had a hard sleeper, which actually was more comfortable than it sounds except for the cigarette smoke everywhere. At 5:30 the next morning a train employee came down the aisle and took everyones sheets away. Ten minutes later loud Chinese pop music began playing through a speaker. We passed miles and miles of countryside where farmers were plowing fields or were leading donkey carts, and finally arrived at the Changchun train station at 7:00am. As we climbed the stairs from the platform, dramatic militarylike music blared through crackling speakers as a womans voice counted in Chinese. At the top of the steps we were met by a large group of Chinese workers, all in blue Mao suits doing calisthenics to the music and the counting. What a sight! As we exited the train station, the scene was much different. Young women were wearing brightly colored outfits, some mixing plaid skirts with striped blouses. There were also guys with t-shirts with English sayings on them. A few farmers were selling fruit and other vendors sold what looked like long doughnuts. Crowds of Chinese swarmed around us, some mouths agape, others staring and smiling. We stared and smiled back. The passage above is taken from a diary entry of mine written in June 1988 during my first trip to China as a student in a language exchange program. I begin with this excerpt because it underscores the profound changes that have taken place in China in the last few decades, including large-scale rural-to-urban migration, urbanization, and the birth of a consumer society. Written nearly 20 years ago, it also reflects some of the key themes that form the basis for this dissertation issues of gender, identity, and difference; the mobility of people from various walks of life; and the unevenness in possibilities and reasons for this mobility. Of course, absent from this brief narrative is another type of mobility that is central to this project communicative mobility via the cell phone. In 1988 most people in Chinas northeast like most people everywhere 1

had never seen nor heard of something that the Chinese now call a shouji. 10 years later their country would have the largest number of these mobile devices, along with the greatest peacetime internal migration, in the world.1 That summer in Changchun at Northeast Normal University, though relatively ignorant of their meaning and significance, I observed the nascent processes that had already begun changing the Peoples Republic of China. A decade earlier the Chinese government had initiated a gradual policy of reform and opening (gaige kaifang), and as a result cities like Beijing and Shanghai as well as the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) set up along the southern coastal regions were experiencing considerable transformation. Compared to these areas, however, Changchun, the Detroit of China home to the nations first automotive factory, which produced the Liberation truck and the Red Flag sedan was a bit of a backwater, despite being a city of over one million people. It showed signs of economic reform there were some private restaurants and at a few open markets peasant farmers sold produce laid out on burlap sacks or piled on the back of donkey carts but most people were employed in government-owned work units, and the city had not shed much of its socialist austerity. Many adults still wore the Mao suit in shades of blue or gray, and the only American item for sale in shops was Coca Cola. The students who became our friends and language partners at the university were eager to learn about the world outside of China. Though they had extreme pride in their own country, over and over in conversations we were told that China was an ancient country with a long history, that it was a developing country, and that it was doing its best to catch up. It was as if everyone was reciting the same passage they 2

had memorized from their English language textbook. Each time I heard these words I did not know how to respond except to nod and agree that yes, China was an ancient country. Such longings for modernity, largely constructed as lying elsewhere yet undoubtedly within reach, are by now familiar in discussions of East and West, of center and periphery. They also constitute a central theme in Chinas own internal mapping of urban versus rural, progress and backwardness, and belonging as opposed to difference. After that first summer I did not return to China again until 1990, one year after the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square had ended in such heartbreak and tragedy. At that time, the legacy of Tiananmen was still palpable from the increased military presence and the tank tracks etched into the pavement down a long portion of Changan Jie (the Boulevard of Eternal Peace), to the half-built skyscrapers that dotted the city landscape like steel skeletons, the result of foreign investment that had pulled out in the wake of the government crackdown. As an English instructor to scholars at a government institute, I was warned not to bring up sensitive subjects in the classroom. However, once my students became more comfortable with me and the other teachers, they were eager to talk about all kinds of topics; we even learned from them that they had been told we were part of an American government conspiracy to try to change China through peaceful evolution (heping yanbian). Though Beijing in 1990 was quite different from Changchun in 1988, still, most people I knew there did not have telephones, everyone rode a bicycle, and there was only a nascent consumer culture. At that time, China still had rather stringent policies regarding population mobility (which will be explained in more detail in chapter two), 3

yet there were clearly a large number of rural-to-urban migrants residing in Beijing. Like most people, I bought vegetables from peasant farmers, ate at private restaurants run by ethnic Koreans from the northeast, and purchased clothes from southern Chinese who operated stalls at the open markets. Overall, however, the pace of change during this time was slow. Then, in 1992 Deng Xiaoping embarked on his Southern Tour (nanxun) in which he promoted further marketization of Chinas economy, or socialism with Chinese characteristics. I recall seeing endless television reportage of this event, with Deng waving and shaking hands with local officials, though I didnt fully realize the profound import of these talks at the time. Within weeks, however, Beijing as well as other parts of China began to change as economic development shifted into high gear. The construction sites that had lain dormant for nearly three years suddenly came to life, and for this to happen and to start building a domestic service economy, cheap, flexible labor was drawn from rural areas. By the time I returned to Beijing a year and a half later, this time as a student of Chinese language, more development was visible, more western influence had arrived (I had a part-time job as a telemarketer selling Hilton hotel membership cards I was a poor saleswoman), and more migrants were residing in the city. I left China for a while in the late nineties, and when I returned in 2002, nothing could have prepared me for the Beijing in which I landed. The quaint little Korean shack where I had eaten dinner at least once a week and the vegetable market next door were gone and in their place stood a 30-story shopping plaza and office complex. All over the city familiar landmarks had been razed and replaced by massive structures. 4

Cars were everywhere as were Japanese and western products. On the sidewalks, what had formerly been a sea of black heads was interrupted by trendy Chinese youth sporting orange or maroon spiked hair. Beijing had changed so dramatically that I had to take a map with me wherever I went because I kept getting lost. Many friends who were intellectuals meaning they were teachers or scholars had joined with thousands of other Chinese and jumped into the sea of business (xiahai), a few even had cars, and every night someone insisted on taking me out to dinner at an upscale restaurant, the likes of which had never existed before. Still, while so many people were doing well, at the same time the rural-to-urban migrants who worked in many of Beijings restaurants and shops lived a much different life, as evidenced in the brick hovels that had been built to house them. When I asked one Beijing friend about this she commented, There are so many nongmingong (migrant workers); soon there will more of them than us. In 2002, though at times in Beijing I felt like I was on another planet, what left the most indelible imprint on me was a trip I took to a remote mountainous region of Sichuan province. During the two-day journey I noticed satellite dishes covering the hills above every small village. Then, at a tourist destination seemingly in the middle of nowhere, where our hotel only had hot water a few hours a day, people everywhere were using cell phones. How, I wondered, is this happening in a supposedly developing country when I cant even get cell phone reception in several areas of Los Angeles? Right around this time, some of the first mobile phone studies started coming out, and I was especially intrigued by the work of Mimi Ito, Rich Ling, James Katz and others who were examining how this personal, portable technology was becoming a 5

central artifact for identity construction and social networking, especially among youth populations.2 Yet with few exceptions, the subjects of these studies were primarily educated, relatively affluent, urban teenagers and college students in developed countries. Of course, research was being done on mobile phones and development, for example Jonathan Donners work among micro-entrepreneurs in Africa.3 However, when I thought about the youth in Ito, Ling, and others studies, it made me wonder what about mobile phone use by their more economically or socially marginalized peers, and/or those not operating within familiar modes of parental and school organization and control? Without the assumed choices between a fixed-line and a cell phone, nor the mobility in daily life that is rhetorically anyway the reason for the mobile phone, and when bound by extremely imposing structural and material constraints, how do people use cell phones in their everyday lives? And how do issues of gender, class, and other aspects of identity influence such usage? Up to that point there had been very little published on mobile phone use in China, so as I began to formulate my research questions, and think about existing gaps, my experience in China and the phenomenal changes that were going on there made me realize it would be a rich site for studying such processes. Chinas migrant population has been the focus of numerous studies by both Chinese and western scholars, yet one aspect of their lives that has remained relatively unexamined is their use of new communication technologies. However, the magnitude of migration in China is matched perhaps only by its growth in telecommunications. In a world where everyday life is increasingly constituted by and within networks of communication, this research explores how young rural-to-urban migrant women 6

working in the low-level service sector in Beijing engage with mobile phones to create meaning and negotiate their lives in the city, in the midst of the disjunctures, dislocations, and contradictions that characterize contemporary China.

Introduction Endnotes 1. The data on mobile phones comes from Chinas Ministry of Information Industry; the figure on migration comes from Jacka, Rural Women, 5. 2. See, for example, Ito et al., Personal, Portable, Pedestrian; Katz and Aakhus, Perpetual Contact; Ling, Mobile Connection. 3. Donner, What Mobile Phones Mean.

CHAPTER ONE: MOBILITIY AND FLUIDITY: GENDER, IDENTITY, AND TECHNOLOGY AN INTRODUCTORY FRAMEWORK As a study of rural-to-urban migrant women and their use of mobile phones, this dissertation is, at its core, about mobility of individuals, identities, and technologies. Indeed, mobility both real and imagined figures as perhaps the defining representation of our globalized world. Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai uses the notion of scapes ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes to capture the movement of people, media, technology, capital, and ideas that traverse the globe, facilitated by communication and transportation technologies.1 Such flows are often impervious to borders and inseparable from the transformation of individual and communal identities. Through deterritorializing culture, space, place, and time, they also necessitate new modes of conceptualizing agency, autonomy, social change, and power dynamics. As Appadurai states, The new global cultural economy has to be seen as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order that cannot any longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery models.2 Appadurai grounds his argument in the overriding significance of two constitutive forces that make such disjuncture possible. The first is the pervasiveness of electronic media, particularly mass media, that flow around the world, creating in the process new resources for the construction of imagined selves and imagined worlds and for experiments with self-making.3 The second is mass migration, that, when combined with the rapid flow of mass-mediated images, scripts, and sensations, produces a new order of instability in the production of modern subjectivities.4 These two phenomena not only link globalization with local imaginings of modernity, but they 9

also cause instability in self-identity. They thus impel ordinary people in everyday life to deploy their imagination in making decisions about their way of life, dreams, and desires. To Appadurai, imagination is not the same as fantasy, escape, or mere contemplation; rather, it is an organized field of social practices, a form of work and a form of negotiation between sites of agency (individuals) and globally defined fields of possibility.5 Appadurais connection between migration and print and visual media as constitutive of the construction of individual and collective identity certainly is applicable to China, where three decades of economic reform and societal restructuring have engendered severe discontinuities and ruptures that have also created new values, new modes of being in the world, and new subject positions. Yet, today nearly two decades after Appadurai wrote his seminal essay, to his paradigm of migration and media as productive of modernity at large must be added the phenomenon of mobile communication. For the mobile phone also enables the traversal of physical and geographic borders, the puncturing of boundaries of time and space, and the creation of new modes of social networking and identity. It too can be linked to Appadurais notion of imagination, in that through cell phones people have the potential for constant connectivity with distant others in faraway places, they may become empowered as autonomous subjects vis--vis other social actors, and they may also engage in forms of activism and resistance that can even help to topple governments.6 For all of these reasons, the mobile phone also seems to be the ultimate technology both practically and symbolically of what Manuel Castells calls a new form of society, the network society, which has changed our conception of time and 10

space and has led to new forms of work and social organization.7 It has also ushered in a world that is becoming increasingly characterized by networks of communication and the thorough integration of new communication technologies into peoples everyday lives. However, in Castells articulation of the network society there exists what he calls the double logic of inclusion and exclusion in networks of production, consumption, communication, and power.8 While not the same as the digital divide, clearly those at the exclusionary margins of this networked society are likely to have an impoverished or nonexistent communication technology environment. They also fall into what Castells calls generic labor, meaning labor that is flexible, disposable, unskilled, and, not surprisingly, or perhaps therefore, increasingly, feminized.9 Notions of inclusion and exclusion thus draw attention to the fact that how the mobile phone is used, what it means, and how emancipatory it really is all depend on numerous factors, not least of which concerns who the user is in what context. In this regard, compared to the mobile phone, the mobile person has been and must be configured somewhat more heterogeneously. As a cosmopolitan, he or she is one who traverses the globe with relative freedom and whose cultivated knowledge enables a sense of savoir faire within diverse cultures. The high-powered executive, increasingly aided by a range of digital devices including a mobile phone, is certainly one representation of this worldly sophisticate. Mostly celebrated, though occasionally scorned, the cosmopolitan is symbolic of the key actors that matter in the network societys tangled web of power and value. In stark contrast to the cosmopolitan stands the migrant. Though also implicated in the webs of influence and affluence that constitute the cosmopolitans world, he or she 11

lurks at the peripheries (despite Appadurais insistence that these no longer matter). In the global imagining, the migrant is most often the cosmopolitans invisible other. While he surfs the web and presides over board meetings, she cleans his home, or assembles his iPod in a sweatshop in a developing country, or satisfies his desires through the global sex trade. The choice of gender pronouns here is deliberate, meant to evoke stereotype as much as reality. The implied notions of class and place are intentional as well. For in the brief portrait just painted, the cosmopolitan is most likely western (or perhaps Japanese); the migrant is almost without doubt in or from the developing world. While the migrant is mobile in the sense of leaving home for work, in the destination he or she usually experiences a relatively confined social world. This study of rural-to-urban migrant women, then, is not only about mobility but also immobility. It examines how social constructions of gender, class, and place-based identities produce particular engagements with mobile technologies and how such engagement in turn produces new forms of identity, autonomy, agency, and sociality. It is situated within the context of Chinas modernizing project, a social and cultural milieu that offers migrant women greater opportunities for personal autonomy while at the same time maintaining rigid structural and cultural impediments to this autonomy. This study asks how, in the midst of extremely limited and limiting material conditions, young migrant women use mobile phones to construct identity and to resist as well as possibly reify their marginal position. As a basis for this research, I build a theoretical framework that considers how the self, and by extension gender and other markers of identity, as well as uses and understandings of technology, are created within social relations. More specifically, I 12

draw from theories that posit the socially constructed nature of identity, gender, and hybridity, and then develop an intersectional framework that considers gender, class, and place for understanding migrant womens experience in the city and their use of mobile phones. I next discuss a notion of technological culture as well as the extension of the social shaping of technology as a means of understanding and analyzing technology as a social practice. I follow this discussion by summarizing the findings of youth uses of cell phones that are relevant to this study. I conclude with my research objective, methodology, and an overview of the chapters in the dissertation. The Fluidity of Identity Craig Calhoun has stated that identity, as part of the project of subjectivity, is always a construction no matter how much it feels like a discovery and is always constructed and situated in a field amid a flow of contending cultural discourses.10 Manuel Castells calls identity peoples source of meaning and experience.11 It is plural, dependent on ones cultural and social milieu, and is shaped by relations of power. Stuart Hall has also persuasively argued that identity is not stable and fixed; rather it is fluid and is constitutive of an individuals relation to others and to society at large, and as such has social, psychological, political, and physical consequences. Particularly in a world characterized by so many flows of people, cultures, labor, and images Appadurais scapes identity must be viewed as a process of becoming rather than being, not a clasping at roots but a coming-to-terms-with our routes.12 For this reason Hall believes it is more appropriate to speak of identities, which are never unified and never singular but multiply constructed across different, often 13

intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices and positions.13 In linking identity and discourse, Hall draws attention to how identity is shaped by a cultural milieu and structures that often reinforce difference and produce unequal power relations. Theorizing identity, then, necessitates theorizing power, and Michel Foucaults notion of power as productive, rather than solely repressive, is particularly useful here. Foucault insists that power and discourse are mutually constitutive and that both produce social knowledge through practices and language that foreclose what can and cannot be acknowledged, spoken, or given material form.14 To Foucault, discourse does not represent the real; rather, it creates the real and there is no reality outside of discourse. In the same way, subjects do not produce discourse, but discourse produces subject positions that individuals occupy.15 If discourse produces what we know and who we are, then it necessarily constructs identity and defines and limits possibilities of individual and collective agency.16 In other words, it is discourse that produces subjectivity, and people occupy subject positions as a result of a multitude of practices, norms, and power relations. In reconciling a Foucaultian notion of power and discourse, possibilities for individual agency, and the workings of the subconscious, Hall says we must conceptualize identity as as a process of identification17 (emphasis in original), which changes over time as history and our location in various relationships all affect how we understand ourselves. Identification is a construction yet one that is contingent; it is a suturing of both the unconscious and practices based in discourse. In a frequently cited passage, Hall thus states that identities are points of temporary attachment to the subject positions which discursive practices construct for us.18 Clearly, female 14

migrants in Beijing must balance many (sometimes contradictory) identities. As anthropologist Arianne Gaetanos fieldwork has shown, they are at once expected to be dutiful daughters, little working sisters, responsible employees, Chinese citizens, and, in the future, virtuous wives and mothers.19 Each of these identities has different social, psychological, political, and physical consequences shaped by discursive power relations. At the same time, there is nothing inherently stable about any of these identities (or subject positions). Particularly due to the ambivalent space that rural women occupy in Chinas cities, they will likely experience changing processes of identification as a result of new experiences and new practices, of which engagement with technology may be one. Gender Identity A recognition that identity is produced by discourse and experience also reveals the socially constructed nature of multiple axes of identity, namely gender. In her examination of the role of mediated images and discourses, Teresa de Lauretis has shown that gendered subjectivity is the product and process of both representation and self-representation and not a female essence.20 Furthermore, through theorizing the connection between social constructs of gender and the body, several feminist scholars have persuasively argued that physical differences between male and female bodies are socially meaningless until social practices transform them into social facts.21 As Susan Bordo states, the human body is a politically inscribed entity, its physiology and morphology shaped by histories and practices of containment and control.22

15

One of the most significant manifestations of such containment and control can be found in western dualisms of nature/culture, body/spirit, logic/passion, and active/passive that have been mapped onto male and female bodies, respectively.23 Such dualities of course are not symmetrical; in each pair the attribute configured as male has traditionally been thought of as superior and holding higher value in society. These find their corollary in Chinese notions of yin/yang, where in a reversal, the first part of the duality (yin) is associated with the female, yet still indicates the less desirable qualities of softness, passivity, coldness, and slowness, while the yang, or male half, signifies hardness, activity, heat, and quickness.24 Such dualisms are not just relevant to metaphysical theorizing; rather, they have profound social, cultural, and individual consequences as they permeate medical, artistic, literary, psychological, and popular culture discourses.25 Thinking about gender as a set of social practices and discourses leads to Judith Butlers theory of performativity, which shifts the focus from being a primary identity or gender to doing gender. To Butler, there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; identity is performatively constituted by the very expressions that are said to be its results.26 In other words, gender is produced at the moment we speak it and cite it as already in existence. Gender identity is thus a signifying practice that is the effect of discourse.27 Hence, gender is an effect, not a cause of our biology, actions, or experiences. It is crucial to Butlers theory that gender is performative, not performed. If the latter were true, this would presuppose a core, originary gender that can be performed. If gender is performative, then gender is an effect of the performance of the endless repetition of citations of gender, not the cause. 16

Because gender is socially constructed and performative, it is impossible to have a singular, universal notion of woman (or man). Denise Riley calls women a fictional entity that is historically, discursively constructed, and always relatively to other categories which themselves change.28 Riley clearly shows how the meaning of the term women has changed and evolved over time, in particular with the rise of certain scientific and political discourses of the 18th and 19th centuries. In other words, across time and space, different females occupy various positions based on class, race, or socioeconomic status, among other things, so to be a woman or a man cannot mean the same thing for everyone. In the context of China, such shifting social constructions of gender also have a long history, stretching as far back as the mid-Qing dynasty.29 As Tani Barlow has shown, different terms for women, such as fun and nxing, have been employed in official discourse at various times, each serving a particular political agenda and attempting to delimit female subject positions within a specific socio-political context. While in the Qing dynasty, fun located woman within traditional kinship relations, nxing was an early twentieth century invention of reformist anti-Confucian intellectuals who sought to instantiate a universal Chinese Woman. On the other hand, for much of the history of the Peoples Republic, fun has been what Barlow calls a catechrisis, that is, an imaginary master word with very real political effects and power.30 Under the Chinese Communist Party, fun became a politicized subject, situated within discourses of the nation and family, and as such one site for state socialist transformation.31 It also served as a means for the state to regulate social relationships and maintain gender differences and hierarchies. The fact that all Chinese 17

women did not (and do not) experience the subject position fun in the same way due to differences in Maoist political categories, spatial location, and ethnicity again shows the impossibility of a singular concept of woman or fun. Hence, despite my use of the term women, this project is grounded in the epistemological certainty that there is no epistemological certainty of women or Chinese women or, more specifically, Chinese migrant women. Still, though gender identity is socially constructed and not biologically determined, its effects are no less real or powerful. As will be explored further in the next chapter, media and popular discourses in China tend to construct an overwhelmingly negative view of Chinas female migrants as passive, backward, and of general low quality. Yet recent inquiries into their hopes and struggles reveal that, while clearly constrained by forces beyond their control of discourse, capital, patriarchy, societal norms, and state laws they are not just victims, nor are they a unified mass. Instead, they have diverse backgrounds and experiences, and evince myriad forms of both resistance to as well as compliance with their position. A way to reconcile the importance of maintaining gender as a category of analysis and at the same time avoiding gender essentialism has been put forth by Linda Martn Alcoff through her articulation of positionality. Positionality acknowledges that gender is a construct, shaped within a particular historical discursive constellation, yet positionality denies a totalizing view of discourse and the subject and thus allows for agency through asserting the importance of a fluid matrix of practices, habits, and language in constructing an individuals gendered subjectivity.32 In other words, a womans position within a given network of economic, cultural, political, and 18

ideological factors will shape her identity and her understanding of herself as a woman. As contexts and social networks change, so too do the needs, perspectives, and interests of women. As Alcoff states, If it is possible to identify women by their position within this network of relations, then it becomes possible to ground a feminist argument for women, not on a claim that their innate capacities are being stunted, but that their position within the network lacks power and mobility and requires change.33 Indeed, migrant womens position within Chinese society lacks power, yet as her context changes from rural to urban, her social networks may change, as may her needs and perspectives; in this way, the position of migrant woman is identifiable yet never fixed. Difference and Hybridity As should be clear from the above discussion, in many ways identity (and identification) relies not only on representation, but also on negation for its formation (e.g. male/female, yin/yang). According to Stuart Hall, on the one hand, identity is the result of a relationship between ourselves and an Other. He adds, Only when there is an Other can you know who you are.34 The self and the Other are thus mutually constitutive. At the same time, our identities can never be located outside of representation, which not only are constructions of certain identities, but also construct these same identities. In other words, there is never our selves and then the language in which we describe ourselves.35 In calling attention to the function of both negation and representation, Hall provides a powerful means for understanding identity as well as the operations of racism and sexism. These function by negation, by defining what they are 19

not, and by futilely attempting to erase an excess. They also are sustained within representations that create and reproduce difference that is often constructed through binaries. In contemporary China, the differences and inequalities between male/female as well as rural/urban, migrant/resident, and worker/boss are just some of the powerful binaries and negations shaping young migrant womens identity. These are reinforced through structural inequalities, such as salary differentials, gender-stratified labor realms, and the rigid hukou, or household registration system, which has separated Chinese society geographically as well as culturally. Even though less stringent than in the past, the discriminatory nature of the hukou policy as well as urban prejudice against rural peasants operate to position migrants in Chinas cities as second-class citizens. As Zhang Li has stated, These two birth-ascribed groups, once mapped on two different kinds of placesthe countryside and cityare now brought together in the same urban space, leading to the formation of a new two class urban society in the post-Mao era.36 Still, it is crucial to attempt to understand identity beyond binaries, as Homi Bhabha has sought to do with his theory of hybridity, which interrogates the liminal space between the culture of the colonized and the colonizer, where selfhood both individual and communal can be imagined in innovate ways beyond the singularities of race, class, and gender. Through rejecting a definite separation between inclusion/exclusion, margin/center, and East/West, Bhabha shows the reciprocal nature of cultural construction and transformation.

20

In The Location of Culture, Bhabha theorizes what he calls an interstitial passage between fixed identifications [that] opens up the possibility of a cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed imposed hierarchy.37 This third space introduces ambivalence, where meaning and symbols cannot be fixed and where the subject of knowledge cannot be easily determined. A hybrid identity is never pre-given but is always a production, a transformation, a splitting of self and Other. Bhabhas third space also creates the possibility for agency, particularly for the subaltern, who is reinscribed into a location where contestation is possible. Furthermore, Bhabhas theorizing of hybridity is an effort to erase essentialism and to problematize the effects of power. While hybridity is still produced through power, it is at the same time the name for the strategic reversal of the process of domination.38 If power produces hybridity rather than repression, then a significant shift in perspective can occur the ambivalence allows a space for subversion and the intervention of subjugated knowledges. Thus, Bhabhas theory of hybrid identity is intricately connected to a politics of resistance. In celebrating hybridity in theory, Bhabha possibly ignores the reality that for many, living on the margin or in the third space means disenfranchisement and abject poverty. Hybridity has also been criticized for invoking the very binaries it is meant to destabilize.39 However, retaining the possibility of hybridity is a way to disrupt the power of the dominant discourse through displacing socially constructed hierarchies and shifting the terms of the construction of meaning. In creating an alternate space for possibility, hybridity invokes the multiple modes of power and agency that can flow across and between fluid rather than fixed categories. If identity is in fact fluid, there are 21

possibilities for those who are disenfranchised to develop a sense of agency and autonomy, despite other obstacles. Particularly in the lives of rural women, their experience in the city can enable them to construct a hybrid rural-urban identity through a variety of processes, including their engagement with technology. It can also upset the taken-for-granted rural/urban binaries. Hybridity, then, is not necessarily a normative or descriptive concept, but an analytical one.40 Contemporary China: Gender, Class, and Place Both Homi Bhabha and Stuart Hall discuss the disruption of the notion of a stable identity as constitutive of modernity. To Hall, this disruption is the result of four great decenterings in intellectual life and in Western thought.41 As will be elaborated in the next chapter, contemporary China in recent decades has also experienced a number of its own contradictions, disjunctures, and decenterings, as the radical socialist utopian vision of Mao Zedong has been replaced by a pragmatic Party leadership that advocates socialism with Chinese characteristics. Egalitarianism, collectivism, and asceticism have been repudiated in favor of neoliberal market policies that emphasize individual merit, material wealth, and consumption. The ideological legitimacy of the Communist Party has been nearly completely undermined, and with it its moral authority, creating a space where alternate values and lifestyles compete for peoples attention, often within a mediated realm of representation. As large segments of the population undergo shifts not only in geographic location or occupation, but also in goals, values, and notions of morality, they experience profoundly the fluidity of identity that Hall discusses.

22

Chinese anthropologist Liu Xin has called this the discontinuity in the personhood of a person or the otherness of self,42 by which he means how oneself is able to become its Othernot in the sense of changing ones profession or job but in the sense that the character of a person may change entirely within a short period of timefor example, in a few years.43 To exemplify such radical internal change to the constitution of self as an ethical subject,44 he presents an ethnographic narrative of the dealings of private entrepreneurs (including one who was formerly an intellectual, with a Ph.D. in Marxism and demography), the section chief of a government bureaucracy, and massage parlor girls (who are migrants) in Beihai in southern coastal China. The boss and section chief lead their lives seemingly with no other purpose than to secure the next deal and then confer or indulge in the concomitant favors (including the sexual services of the girls). They exist in a world of mobile-phonic space, of constancy and instantness, with their cell phone always at hand in order to negotiate vaguely unscrupulous deals and arrange ad hoc meetings.45 The migrant women in this narrative are subordinate yet critical they bridge the gap between bureaucracy and business through being the invisible hands that massage the masculine engines of commerce, both literally and figuratively.46 All of these stock characters as Liu calls them bosses, businessmen, escorts have experienced rupture of subjectivity and subsequent anomie, hardly able to distinguish one day from the next. Lius point is to present contemporary China as a place where people have lost a sense of time, of belonging, and of direction in the business of being in the world.47 I reiterate in detail Lius work because it offers a compelling narrative of the fluidity of identity and the effect on selfhood of the dislocations that characterize post23

socialist China.48 However, I also want to critique it and in so doing argue that to think about identity necessitates a much deeper consideration of how an individuals disparate positioning in terms of gender, socio-economic status, and geographic origin intersect to render differently their experience of transformation of selfhood. Liu asserts that the official world is a male world, yet the xiaojie (escort) is a means of business success.49 She is a commodity, an essential part of the business transaction and one that goes beyond the surface meaning of sex, existing in the space between the official world and the market. As such, Liu states that the relationship between the male entrepreneurs and the escorts is a symmetrical one.50 Clearly, a migrant woman, whether employed as an escort or in the low-level service sector as a waitress or vendor, does not occupy a similar position as those she serves or to whom she is employed, no matter how great her significance in the interstitial realm of economic transactions. Whether she occupies the same mobilephonic space as they do is also questionable. Her gender, her experience of migration, and her particular occupation are only some of the experiences that shape her subjectivity, and shape it differently than her male counterparts. Thus, theorizing identity and its connection to technology usage also means attending to the multiple aspects of identity that are always at play to a greater or lesser extent. An Intersectional Framework Intersectionality, as theorized by Kimberl Crenshaw, offers a framework for considering the way that gender, race, class, or any other facet of identity interconnect in shaping identity and experience.51 More specifically, intersectionality is a means of 24

breaking away from the privileging of one aspect of identity over another in order to avoid distortions and exclusions. An intersectional framework also takes into consideration the overlapping of structural, political, and representational dimensions that often lead to the subordination of women. Intersectionality is more than just a consideration of the way discrete, static categories of identity interconnect; it is a framework for understanding how they are always in play, even if at different moments one might be more significant in shaping experience than another. It thus offers a methodology for generating knowledge about the multifaceted nature of identity and womens experience within specific historical and cultural configurations of discourse and power. While China does not share the same legal and individual rights-based tradition as the U.S, where Crenshaw has used intersectionality as a framework for understanding racial and gender discrimination, intersectionality has been effectively employed across geographical and cultural borders, for example in the context of transnational feminism and movements for womens human rights at the international level. Within this context, categories of identity are configured in relation to one another and in relation to the global inequalities caused by transnational capitalism. In the previous section I highlighted gender as a central organizing category of experience, due to the way myriad social discourses and meanings are mapped onto the physical bodies of men and women. Gender is certainly crucial to female migrant workers positionality in Chinese society as well as their engagement with mobile phones. However, the terms migrant and worker reveal the need for an intersectional framework that also considers how class and place are important in the 25

construction of migrant womens subjectivity. The significance of the intersection of gender, class, and place can be demonstrated through unpacking a commonly used Chinese term for migrant woman dagongmei.52 A highly gendered term, dagongmei means working little sister or maiden worker and connotes a young, unmarried woman, who, as a younger sister has low status and few rights. As Chinese anthropologist Pun Ngai notes, dagongmei implies an inferior working identity inscribed with capitalist labor relations and sexual relations.53 The gendered nature of the term becomes pronounced when one notes that its counterpart, dagongzai, a common term for male migrant workers, means workers laboring for the boss.54 Dagongmei is the gender marked term young migrant women are working little sisters while young migrant men are simply laborers, or brothers, but not little brothers. Furthermore, according to Ching Kwan Lee, managers and bosses who employ dagongmei often view them as like lambs, very pure and compliant and merely girls who work while waiting to be married off.55 Beyond gender, the term dagongmei also invokes a low-status labor category. This inferior working identity as noted above by Pun Ngai is clearly evident when contrasting the term dagongmei (and dagongzai) with the Mao-era term for worker, gongren. Prior to the economic reforms, the gongren were the highly privileged class of urban workers, the masters of the nation employed in state or collective enterprises and as such entitled to numerous life-long social welfare benefits. In contrast, the dagongmei and dagongzai have minimal rights and virtually no job security. They thus represent a class of workers indicative of a capitalist market that extracts surplus labor.56 As China has joined the global market, migrant workers, as always temporary 26

workers, provide the flexibility demanded by late capitalism. In the context of Chinas marketization and globalization, dagongmei emerges as a classificatory strategy that enables the exploitation of workers in the name of socialism with Chinese characteristics (emphasis added). Such restructuring of labor relations is, according to Pun, the subsumption of class analysis in order to hide class positions and social privileges, and as such is part of a political strategy designed to support a neoliberal discourse of open markets and individualism.57 Finally, dagongmei is not only gendered and classed; she is also placed. She is an unskilled, low paid female worker, and she is also, and must be, from rural China. For this reason, her situation in the urban environment greatly differs from a woman who is a city resident. Even if they happen to hold the same job, which is extremely rare, their positionality in asymmetrical networks of power and opportunity means they will experience the city and their employment very differently. I will explore the origins and consequences of this urban-rural divide more fully in chapter two. Here I only wish to point out that in contemporary China, because development policies since the mideighties have focused on the eastern coastal regions and large urban centers, the countryside increasingly has been positioned as left behind, or in Chinese anthropologist Yan Hairongs words, a wasteland of backwardness and tradition.58 This teleological view of the city as the vanguard of progress and development is not unique to China, nor is the urban-rural dichotomy a recent result of post-Mao reforms. In fact, its roots can be traced long prior to the founding of the Peoples Republic. However, cast in the shadow of Maos rhetorical construction of the peasants as possessing a revolutionary character, the necessity of repudiating Maoist ideology 27

becomes clear. The countryside and peasants, then, become objectified as the backward, traditional Other against which progress and development can be measured. Such a blanket assessment places the origin and perpetuation of this social reality onto the geographic domain of the countryside and the mental and physical bodies of its inhabitants rather than structural and institutional factors that discursively produce and make real these conditions. In sum, dagongmei is a subject position produced by structural, cultural, and social factors that rely on dominant discourses of gender, class, and place. It thus operates as a form of power to normalize the exploitative conditions faced by migrant women and their position in the gender and societal hierarchy. However, like all identity categories, the term dagongmei can never be totally fixed, and though it constructs migrant women as one singular entity, this does not mean that many women do not refuse this subject position. Instead, migrant womens own liminality in the city potentially creates possibilities for new modes of identity and autonomy, and increasingly these are linked to technology usage. Theorizing Technology If identity is fluid, is crosscut by multiple axes of experience, and is constructed within a network of power, discourse, and representations, then to look at identity formation as it is connected to technology necessitates understanding how technology exists within the social world. Numerous theories have been put forward to try to account for the way that technologies are integrated into everyday life. It perhaps goes without saying that I reject the idea of technological determinism, or what Claude 28

Fischer describes as a billiard-ball model, in which a technological development rolls in from the outside and impacts elements of society, which in turn impact one another.59 In a technologically determinist view, societal change usually, but not always in the form of teleological progress is the result of technological innovation while human agency is either denied or ignored. On the other hand, social determinism, the idea that technology is merely instrumental and it is the society and economic system in which it is used that matters, also lacks analytical complexity, yet for opposite reasons.60 Such a belief is not only ahistorical, but also treats technology as an isolated entity completely separate from society and culture. Both views clearly engage in reductionism, by placing either technology or society in a vacuum and ignoring complex interactions between various forces and actors. While social constructivist views of technology seek to remedy the weaknesses of determinism by positing that technology, like all artifacts, is socially constructed through the interaction and negotiation of relevant social groups, still many of these theories fall short. The traditional social shaping of technology (SCOT) approach emphasizes the developmental process that is characterized by interpretive flexibility as designers, developers, and organized groups of users engage in problems and solutions to the use of the new technology until a point of closure and stabilization is realized.61 Yet this theory tends to focus on the planning and introduction phases, and as originally conceived pays too little attention to what users actually do with the technology they appropriate. It also only minimally accounts for issues of gender, race, class, and power in the closure process.62

29

Technological Culture To try to account for the complex and interwoven relationship between culture and technology as well as the myriad forces and actors involved, Jennifer Daryl Slack and J. Macgregor Wise draw on cultural studies theorists, including Stuart Hall and Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, to formulate their notion technological culture. Starting with Raymond Williams proposition that culture, as a whole way of life is also ordinary, they suggest that technology, as an artifact of culture, is also an integral part of culture and not something separate from it.63 To capture the fact of technology as not just a bounded thing but as existing within and interdependent with a number of energies, activities, interpenetrations, and investments, they employ the theoretical concepts of articulation and assemblage.64 As Stuart Hall defines it, an articulation is the form of the connection that can make a unity of two different elements, under certain conditions. It is a linkage which is not necessary, determined, absolute and essential for all time.65 The theory of articulation draws attention to myriad connections between distinct elements ideologies, social groups, practices that appear to create a unified discourse. However, articulations are always contingent upon a range of factors in a specific historical conjuncture. The elements articulated can never be assumed to have a necessary correspondence (they could be quite different), yet their unity is also not completely random.66 According to Slack, a good cultural study then, no matter what its topic, must map the context, not only to locate a phenomenon within a certain context, but also to understand what distinct phenomena make this context what it is.67 In other words, the context is not something out there, within which practices occur or which influence the 30

development of practices. Rather, identities, practices, and effects generally, constitute the very context within which they are practices, identities or effects (emphasis in original).68 This context, or web of articulations, is what makes up an assemblage.69 In thinking about technology as articulation and assemblage, Slack and Wise argue that just as culture is made up of a range of articulations that are both coherent and contradictory and that allow for certain possibilities and foreclose others, technologies also are developed, employed, and have effects within a particular assemblage. This then leads to new articulations emerging within a revised assemblage. Technologies, as situated within relations and connections, are also articulations; at the same time, since they consist of webs of corresponding, noncorresponding, and contradictory articulations they are also assemblages.70 Thus, Slack and Wise contend that technologies should be thought of as articulations among the physical arrangements of matter, or what is typically referred to as a technological object, and a variety of practices, representations, experiences, and affects, which always exist in relations of contingency (emphasis in original).71 In the case of a mobile phone, there is the actual physical object as well as its articulated elements, including ideas (freedom, progress), practices (calling, texting) and affect (modern, cool, annoying); how these take a particular dynamic form, or constellation, constitutes its assemblage. The assemblage of the mobile phone will thus include human and non-human bodies, actions, feelings, and statements. Mapping the territory of this mobile phone assemblage does not mean looking at the mobile phone itself, but to the flow of relationships within which it is given meaning as well as its power to assemble specific bodies, passions, and representations in particular ways.72 31

Such a perspective in its very formulation considers issues of power, identity, and agency. Extending the Social Shaping of Technology While Slack and Wises notion of technological culture is helpful for thinking about the way that technology is not separate from culture and that it is always embedded in myriad social discourses, practices, and relationships that are not predetermined but contingent, it is also a bit abstract. To understand the complex way that technology is embedded in social practices and given meaning, what is needed is a way to make the concepts of articulation and assemblage more practical through a theory that takes into account the flexible and polysemic nature of technology, its ideological underpinnings, the contingent and indeterminate way that technological devices come to have meaning, and the mutual shaping done by various social actors and forces, all of which operate within a system of cultural practices, values, and norms. In Extending the Social Shaping of Technology, Hughie Mackay and Gareth Gillespie attempt to link key aspects of the social shaping of technology literature with the theoretical and methodological concerns of cultural studies of media and media audiences (the active audience, issues of power and ideology, modes of decoding, articulation, etc).73 They attend to three distinct (yet not discrete or necessarily sequential) spheres in analyzing a technology: how designers/producers encode a technology with functional and symbolic uses and meanings within the existing ideologies (of gender, age, nation, etc.) of a society; how marketers and advertisers play an important role through socially constructing demand and disseminating discursive constructions of technology (which embody economic as well as ideological interests) 32

that can be accepted or rejected by consumers; and how users actively appropriate technologies in a variety of manners within specific social and cultural contexts. In their model, technology is not already closed once it reaches users, nor is it open to limitless interpretations and uses; rather, it contains flexibility within certain parameters. As they state: People may reject technologies, redefine their functional purpose, customize, or even invest idiosyncratic symbolic meanings in them. Indeed they may redefine a technology in a way that defies its original, designed and intended purpose. Thus the appropriation of technology is an integral part of its social shaping. However, the appropriation of a technology cannot be entirely separated from its design and development: technologies are designed for particular purposes.74 Drawing on the work of Stuart Hall and David Morley, specifically the notion of the encoding and decoding of texts, they note that just as media texts may have a preferred reading, so too, technologies may have within them preferred meanings as well as modes of deployment. Such encodings are often reinforced through advertising. Nonetheless, users may reject such preferred forms and exercise creativity in their appropriating (or decoding) of a technology; thus, one type of meaning or usage is never inevitable or fixed even though it takes place within the limits of the physical, material, and technical properties of the artifact. In other words, there is freedom within constraint.75 As part of their analysis of appropriation, Mackay and Gillespie also recognize the importance attached to the symbolic meaning of cultural artifacts, including technological objects. In their words, The subjective, social appropriation of a technology is thus one key element of a technology not just how it is used, but the 33

meaning that use has for the user: a technology is not merely a physical object, it carries meanings.76 Citing cultural theorists and cultural anthropologists including Jean Baudrillard and Daniel Miller, their model acknowledges that cultural objects are signs that signify taste, status, and, of utmost significance to this project, identity. Technological objects, then, hold not just an instrumental value, but are deeply implicated in the construction of identity and expressions of the self. Usage of technological artifacts involves not only the consumption of meanings, but also the production of meanings by the consumer.77 Such production of meaning necessarily takes place within specific social, political, and ideological conditions, and is not inherent in the technological object. A final part of this model, though mentioned only in passing, is that it must include notions of gender, class, geographical, and generational context. In sum, consumption and adoption of a technology must be seen as a continuing, co-constitutive process of social and discursive interaction among myriad actors within a particular social, cultural, and historical context. The Social Shaping of the Mobile Phone: Communication as Transmission and Ritual Some of the best scholarship within the burgeoning field of mobile phone research has taken an approach that is similar to MacKay and Gillespies. Though not referencing their model explicitly, these studies draw upon a revised formulation of the social construction of technology that pays more attention to the mutual shaping of technology and society. Describing this approach, Mizuko Ito, who with her colleagues at Keio University in Tokyo did some of the earliest studies on mobile phone appropriation, notes that such studies posit that technologies are both constructive of 34

and constructed by historical, social, and cultural contexts, and they argue against the analytic separation of the social and technical.78 As to her own philosophy she states, Technologies are objectifications of particular cultures and social relationships, and in turn, are incorporated into the stream of social and cultural evolution.79 Many mobile phone studies have also focused on the symbolic and ritual meaning of the cell phone, and in this regard they recall James Carreys seminal essay, A Cultural Approach to Communication, though, again, most do not reference Carey explicitly.80 In this article, Carey discusses two ways of viewing communication as either transmission or ritual. The transmission model the more common approach conceives of communication as a process in which messages are sent and delivered across space for purposes of information or control.81 Communication as ritual, however, is connected to notions of community and belonging. In Careys words, A ritual view of communication is directed not toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs.82 To Carey, communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed.83 Mobile phones, as transmission tools, are indeed the latest in a series of technological devices that allow for greater ease in sending information across time and space to physically distant others. As the early AirTouch (now Verizon) wireless ads proclaimed, cell phones allow for anytime, anywhere communication. Yet, equally significant is the way cell phones, as symbols of reality, have come to represent everything from personal identity to group solidarity, especially among youth populations. As symbols for these same processes, they create the very reality they 35

present.84 In other words, if all of ones peers have a mobile phone and this signifies connection (literally and figuratively) to the group, then a cell phone becomes constitutive of group belonging and identity. In the following discussion, I summarize some of the major findings regarding mobile phone use and youth. As mentioned earlier, much of this research has been conducted among relatively affluent high school and college students in their late teens and early twenties in Northern and Western Europe and Japan, where mobile telephony advanced rather early and quickly. Overall, such research locates the mobile phone as a significant part of users lives, both for functional and expressive reasons. Many connections have been found between mobile phones and identity, broadly conceived. For analytical purposes, I organize the findings into the following categories: the cell phones connection to the physical self and self-presentation, fashion/style, social networks, autonomy, gender, and time/space relations. The Physical Self and Self-Presentation In much research on mobile phones, particularly studies carried out among youth populations, connections between the phone and the physical body appear to be quite salient. Setting aside the deterministic tone of his proclamation, it appears in fact that Marshall McLuhans notion of technology as an extension of the self has become true for many mobile phone users.85 For example, young people in Finland refer to their mobile phones by words meaning an extension of the hand while teens in Japan say they are blind without their mobile phone.86 According to Mizuko Ito, even the Japanese term, keitai, positions the phone not as a new technical capability or freedom of motion but as a snug and intimate technosocial tethering, a personal device 36

supporting communications that are a constant, lightweight, and mundane presence in everyday life.87 The Chinese word, shouji, or handset, also connotes a greater connection between user and phone than does cell phone, a term that references the technology rather than a physical connection. In addition to being felt to be part of the self, cell phones are also important in the presentation of the self. It has become commonplace for mobile phones to display personalized touches such as pictures, individualized ringtones, and stickers which convey a symbolic meaning beyond the functionality of the phone. This is particularly true across Asia, especially among young women.88 In fact, some girls feel that losing a phone is more traumatic than losing a boyfriend.89 Rich Ling and Birgitte Yttri found that old (over two years), large, or ugly handsets are cause for embarrassment; even so, the phone must not be shown off (by having the most exclusive one) or displayed too obviously.90 Similarly, Kris Cohen and Nina Wakefords study revealed that mobile technologies are closely linked to self display, self perception, and identity, and thus changes to mobility [and mobile devices] entail complex changes to oneself.91 Mobile phones also affect identity, as they can become status symbols, a gauge for ones popularity via the number of messages one receives and names in ones address book, and markers of in-group/out-group boundaries.92 Nicola Greens fieldwork in the United Kingdom showed that among teens mobile phones were a means to perform identity and to constitute and accomplish social solidarities and differences, both among themselves, and between themselves and other social groups.93 Dawn Nafus and Karina Tracey found that in England among those under 30, the mobile phone, in both its discursive and actual use, paralleled notions of constructing an autonomous self 37

as distinct from others.94 In China, both migrant workers in southern factories and hip urban youth in Beijing voiced similar connections between owning a mobile phone and perceived social status or maintenance of face.95 Perhaps Claire Lobet-Maris sums up the connection between mobile phones and identity best in her statement about Belgian teens: For young people, the mobile phone is not only a practical object with which one communicates but also an object invested with a high degree of symbolic significance and a large factor in the constitution of ones identity.96 Fashion/Style Though fashion is most often associated with trends, the line between fashion and identity can become rather blurred, as individuals adhere to certain fashions that align with their personality and taste, and as fashion can serve to distinguish certain groups from others (e.g. preppie versus punk fashion). A visit to Nokia or Motorolas website reveals that the cell phone industry has aggressively pursued the connection between phone and fashion. For example, not long ago Nokia had a line of cell phones that the company proclaimed were wearable art and the ultimate objects of desire.97 Many users have also linked cell phones with fashion. Especially among teens, particular models, colors, ringtones, and wallpaper not only serve as an expression of personal identity but also convey a certain style. Rich Ling has written extensively on this connection between fashion and mobile phones among Norwegian teens. In one of his studies, his interviewees described phones as a fashion thing and a way to distinguish whether someone is in or not. One subject said, Mobiles have become trendy and hip. The more extreme your mobile, the cooler you are.98 Interestingly, Ling found that views on the appropriate display of mobile phones changed over time. In the period 38

before widespread adoption, exhibiting ones phone in general was seen as tacky or vulgar, while after widespread adoption, display was no longer an issue (although wearing ones phone on ones belt was roundly condemned); rather, type and style of phone became more important as well as size, color, functionalities, and accessories. 99 James Katz and Satomi Sugiyama have called a cell phone a miniature aesthetic statement about its owner.100 In their poll conducted among university students, over 50 percent agreed that their cell phone should look cool, and over half of these same responders said they noticed how fashionable their friends phones were. This study also revealed that those who were early adopters of mobile phones were more concerned about style. Howard Rheingold as well has noted the important fashion dimension of mobile phones and the possibilities for the disruption of conventional social codes when a high-tech communication device with complex features (rather than a scarf or cosmetic) is the trendy object, and when the fashion object itself can be used as a medium for propagating fashions.101 And Leopoldina Fortunati has traced the success of the mobile phone in Italy in part to perceptions of it as a necessary accessory in line with the Italian beautiful tradition and passion for aesthetic taste.102 In Greens study of British youth cited above, especially among younger teens, their discussion of styles and features often took place with reference to current advertising, and particular brands, features, and rarity of the mobile phone raised the status of its owner.103 Social Networks Clearly new communication technologies such as mobile phones contain an expansionary logic in their very design. Thus, it is no surprise that several scholars have 39

sought to find a connection between mobile phones and social capital, roughly defined as the breadth and quality of a persons social relations.104 Much research has focused upon the way the cell phone allows for nurturing personal ties through social grooming105 and for reinforcing already existing social networks.106 For example, Truls Erik Johnsen found that Norwegian teens use meaningless yet necessary chat, which lacks substance but is nonetheless important for expressive reasons, as well as digital gift giving through exchanging jokes, short phrases, and animation as a means of social glue.107 Alex Taylor and Richard Harper have also shown how text messaging, as a form of gifting, helps mediate teens social relationships.108 Ling and Yttri have coined the term hyper-coordination for the way mobile phones are used for emotional and social communication, particularly through chatting and sending short text messages that foster group integration.109 Hypercoordination also includes in-group consensus about the proper forms of selfpresentation vis--vis the mobile telephone, including which type of phone is deemed appropriate, how it is carried, and how and where it is used.110 As with Johnsons study, the expressive functions of the mobile phone to send chain text messages, notes, jokes, and even a type of haiku reinforce connection with peers and serve as a metacontent; that is, the receiver is in the thoughts of the sender.111 Mizuko Ito and Daisuke Okabe, researching in Japan, have termed the way close friends or intimates use mobile phones to maintain regular accessibility and connection ambient virtual copresence.112 Many other studies among young people in diverse locations have found similar results.113

40

For young migrant workers in factories in southern China, the mobile phone has been shown to be important for them to maintain friendships and make new connections.114 Though not researching among youth per se, Heather Horst and Daniel Miller found in their ethnographic study of low-income Jamaicans that the cell phone is crucial for what is called link-up, or networking and establishing connections, often in order to rely on these contacts in the future for everything from finding a job, to borrowing money, to establishing a sexual relationship.115 Autonomy The mobile phone has also frequently been linked to notions of personal autonomy and freedom. Perhaps the greatest feeling of autonomy as it relates to cell phones has been experienced by teens because mobile phones allow them to communicate with peers away from any parental supervision. In particular, text messaging is seen as a unique form and style of communication that inhibits adult monitoring; at the same time, parents exploit the fact that kids constantly check their messages in order to keep tabs on them.116 This form of safe autonomy has been noted by several researchers and shows that while the cell phone might break some traditional family ties, it simultaneously maintains them.117 Though the mobile phone allows teens to forge social bonds apart from adults, mobiles have at the same time been called an extension of the umbilical cord or a digital leash. In numerous studies, parents have said they bought a mobile phone for their children in order to stay in touch and to feel more secure about their childrens well being; children also say the phone makes them feel safer.118 Yet, while parents exercise some form of control over their children via a cell phone, children simultaneously gain a significant, even though limited, 41

amount of independence. Through the privacy afforded by the mobile phone and the way that text messages are often indecipherable to many adults, teens can build a private universe beyond the realm of parental supervision. Aside from parent-child relationships, the mobile phone has frequently been linked to broader notions of personal autonomy and freedom. Users are free of the constraints of traditional landline phones and also are liberated from the former divide between public and private space. Mobile devices also break down traditional mors concerning everything from appropriate topics of public conversation to dating and sex. For example, a phenomenon called toothing allows users with Bluetooth enabled phones to set up anonymous sexual encounters. Sex messaging, or text messaging as a means of hooking up with a date or engaging in foreplay even while in a public space has also become a popular trend for some.119 Not that there werent already sufficient means for anonymous sexual encounters in the days before mobile phones, but the personal nature of wireless devices allows for greater autonomy and privacy in pursuing such activities. Gender As Cynthia Cockburn has aptly stated, technology cannot be fully understood without reference to gender.120 If we just look at statistics of mobile phone ownership, many studies show relative parity of ownership among males and females in a number of countries.121 It would be tempting, then, to assume a mobile phone is not a gendered artifact. However, gender differences have been observed in both instrumental and symbolic uses of mobile phones, though with conflicting conclusions. According to Virpi Oksman and Pirjo Rautiainen, Finnish boys are more likely than girls to keep up 42

with new cell phone innovations. Also, while boys view cell phones as a way to control their environment, girls focus more on the interactive and aesthetic side of communication technology.122 In further research, Oksman and Rautiainen noticed that boys were more likely to display their phones so they would be visible while girls carried them in a purse or pocket.123 Researching in Norway, Berit Skog also found that ninth grade boys emphasized functionality more than girls, while girls stressed design, color, and ringtones as well as expressive/social aspects of mobile phones.124 Still, both sexes valued the communicative function of the phone. In a multi-nation study, Sadie Plant observed gender differences in the public display of cell phones. In interviews, American women said their male peers were more apt to use their phones as symbols of status or even virility.125 In London, some men stated that if another man in their presence had a pricier or more technologically advanced phone, they would feel self conscious about showing their own phone. When Plant observed male and female couples, males were more often seen displaying their phone, yet lone women often had their phone on the table, sometimes to ward off unwanted attention by men. Other researchers, however, have found that it is the discourses of mobile phones rather than the actual practices that manifest gender differences. In a study in Israel, Dafna Lemish and Akiba Cohen interviewed men and women who characterized the role of the mobile phone in their lives in very gendered language, yet their actual practices did not manifest such differences. Instead, the adoption of mobile phones seemed to blur the traditional gendered discrepancies in technology use.126 Similar findings were reported in Norway, where variations were not so much in usage as in 43

descriptions of usage by males and females.127 In the U.S., Cingular (now AT&T) found that men actually made more phone calls than women, while women used the gaming feature on their mobiles more, in both cases reversing gender stereotypes about phone and technology use.128 A more recent study found that young adult men were more concerned than women with style and status obtained via their mobile phone.129 However, in certain Asian countries, particularly Japan, a culture of cute (kawaii) has developed around girls decorating of their mobile phones. Time and Space The explosion of new technologies that allow for ubiquitous, simultaneous, and dislodged communication has meant that time and place have changed meaning: in all aspects of life there is both an increasing disassociation between spatial proximity and the performance of everyday lifes functions as well as the blending of tenses as time is compressed to the fullest extent possible.130 The result is a world characterized by what Manuel Castells calls the space of flows and timeless time. The former is the material organization of time-sharing social practices that work through flows; its structure and significance is not dependent on any place but instead on the relationships built in and around networks which define the content of communication flows.131 Timeless time is the de-sequencing of social action, either by time compression or by random ordering of the sequence of activities.132 Mobile phones especially lend themselves to the dislodging of space and the blurring of time, as they allow for simultaneous interaction at great distances at any place and time. They also change our referent as to where we are since the flow of communication rather than the particular place defines the interaction. Places do not 44

disappear, but their logic and their meaning become absorbed in the network.133 Similarly, because space shapes time, one effect is that downtime is no longer downtime; instead, it is full of chatter, texting, or play. Likewise, notions of time are softened, as are rigid distinctions between work and leisure, for better or worse. This is made possible due to the desequencing of activities and the ubiquity of communication allowed by perpetual contact. Not everyone sees these changes as positive. In one study, several people surveyed said that a possible effect of cell phones was that people would not be able to handle the challenges of being alone or they would miss the opportunities for contemplation that dead or down time afford.134 Others have sounded alarms due to the inappropriate blurring of private and public spaces afforded by mobile phones since they can be used nearly anywhere to talk about anything. However, it seems apparent that after an initial period of adjustment, rules of etiquette for cell phone usage for example in restaurants or on public transportation do emerge.135 Another fear has been that cell phones will add to the fragmentation and extreme individuation already found in modern society. Kenneth Gergen has theorized the increase of absent presence due to the growing domain of diverted or divided consciousness brought about by communication technologies (be it a Walkman, iPod, or cell phone) that insinuate themselves into the world of full presence the world in which one is otherwise absorbed and constituted by the immediacy of concrete, face-to-face relationships.136 Surprisingly, he does not view the cell phone as contributing to fragmentation but to the strengthening of local ties due to its ability to provide instant and constant access of people to each other, no matter where they are. 45

Others have observed the reality of space-time compression in mobile phone usage in everyday life. Ling and Yttri have noted a new form of interaction they call micro-coordination, or nuanced, instrumental coordination, which allows for more flexible time scheduling and transportation arrangements.137 Time is softened in that trips can be redirected, lateness can be signaled, and plans can be modified midstream. Shin Dong Kim, researching in Korea, calls the mobile phone an instrument of magical power for the way it enables people to change plans and social engagements instantly and spontaneously.138 Similarly, Ito observed the fluidity with which youth arrange social gatherings, and how constant connectivity regardless of place has lead to diminishing feelings of urban anonymity.139 As Anthony Townsend sums up, particularly in urban areas, a new lifestyle has been made possible by mobile communications, which broke the flow of information away from the scheduling necessary to ensure coordination of journeys. Information could be updated in real-time, negating the need to plan anything. Accessibility became more important than mobility.140 Still, time and space have not disappeared. The question Where are you? is frequently asked when first taking a call on a cell phone not because the exact location of ones interlocutor is important but because knowing the context shapes the conversation that is occurring through a locationless device.141 For this reason, in Japan it has now become customary for one to first send a text message before making a voice call in order to ensure that one is where one can talk.142 These studies show that the mobile phone has become a nearly indispensable artifact in the lives of youth populations in various cultures. At the most basic level, it 46

has a transmission purpose as it is used to communicate messages across space. Equally, or perhaps more important, however, is the way that this personal, portable device serves a ritual function. In a short time span, the cell phone has become a key tool for young peoples identity construction and autonomy vis--vis parents and other authority figures. Mobile phones are also used to establish relationships, to strengthen existing social networks, and to express affection or feelings, not only overtly but also through the exchange of seemingly meaningless yet socially significant messages that signal virtual co-presence. Though some scholars have posited the possibility of universal meanings and uses of cell phones,143 nearly all of the ethnographic mobile phone research cited above is concerned with usage by primarily middle class, educated youth in developed countries. In addition, with few exceptions, most of these studies have only paid minimal attention to issues of power.144 Thus, we must be necessarily wary of mapping primarily westernbased (and Japanese) social facts about mobile phone use onto a culture and population vastly different from the subjects of those studies. While mobile phone research from the outset has been international in scope, and clearly there are broad meanings and practices shared by mobile phone users, different cultural, structural, and institutional factors influence the particular interaction of technology and those who use it in specific contexts. I now turn to the question posed earlier in the introduction to this dissertation: what about mobile phone use by these youths more economically and/or socially marginalized peers, who have different constraints on their personal agency and autonomy?

47

Research Objective This study is situated within the intersecting forces of globalization, migration, and the widespread diffusion of mobile technologies in everyday life. The primary focus of this research is how young rural-to-urban migrant women working in the lowlevel service sector in Beijing engage with cell phones to negotiate their identity and create meaning in relation to themselves and others in the city. As discussed earlier, the fluidity of identity implies that life events such as migration, resettlement into an urban environment, and entry into the labor market will transform identity. This research asks how a personal, portable communication device such as the cell phone is integrated into these processes and how existing discourses of gender, class, and place are constitutive of migrant womens understanding and usage of cell phones. In other words, how does migrant womens positionality shape their engagement with mobile phones? In the context of Chinas discourses of modernity and development, this study also asks what symbolic meanings are articulated to mobile phones and whether cell phones are part of migrant womens forming a hybrid rural-urban identity. In addition, what social and cultural spaces are opened up through cell phones and how are they used for establishing and maintaining various relationships? Another key question is whether cell phones enable migrant women to exercise autonomy vis--vis authority figures such as parents and employers. Finally, given the unequal power relations in which migrant women are positioned within Chinas socio-cultural order, this research examines whether certain uses of mobile phones by both migrant women and their employers might reify migrant womens marginal position.

48

Methodology In order to understand how rural women in Beijing engage with mobile phones in their everyday lives, this study used immersive, ethnographic methods. The goal was to map the context, or to generate what Clifford Geertz calls a thick description where a mere wink is never a mere wink, but is part of a whole repertoire of inference and implication.145 An ethnographic inquiry is designed to generate new knowledge and is based on a logic of discovery that ideally results in the creation of a lens through which people can view certain phenomena or see things in a new way. Rather than verifying theory, it aims to build theory that is persuasive and convincing. This research was conducted during ten months of fieldwork in Beijing that was first begun during July 2005 and primarily carried out from September 2006 to June 2007. The participants in the study were migrant women, as well as a small number of migrant men, who ranged in age from 16 to 26 years old, although most were between 18 and 23. They had migrated to Beijing after finishing at least some middle school (a few had finished high school), and they came mostly from villages though some were from small towns. They were employed primarily in marketplaces, restaurants, and hair salons. A few worked as service staff in government-owned companies. Data were gathered through participant observation, interviews, and a set of mobile phone diaries.146 Before outlining the specifics of the fieldwork, it is first necessary to say a few words about ethnography as methodology. The Problem with Ethnography By now it perhaps goes without saying that using the term ethnography raises questions about the problematic nature of cultural representation. Historically, 49

ethnography, largely associated with anthropology, implied going to a distant (usually exotic) locale to study a foreign culture, which was thought to be bounded, unique, and rooted in universal structures (the family, religion, etc.). Through using purportedly scientific methods devised by western (predominantly male) academics, it was assumed that this culture could be rendered transparent and fully knowable.147 Never mind that some early twentieth century anthropologists did not necessarily have a strong command of the language of the culture they were studying or that they rarely viewed their informants as experts or gave them a voice in the final narrative. A notion of fieldwork driven by the experience and observations of a qualified author grounded in positivist principles was thought to guarantee explanation of exotic peoples.148 The epistemological and methodological bases of ethnography came under attack with the advent of post-structural and post-colonial interventions that, along with questioning the entire notion of objective truth, also critiqued the ethnographer who presumed to speak with automatic authority for others defined as unable to speak for themselves.149 This critique also drew attention to ethnographys propensity for exclusion and for othering those who are the objects of its study, as well as its association with colonialism and imperialism. Such a critique of the ethnographic gaze150 led to a crisis not only in anthropology, but also to a reassessment of ethnography as a method. In the introduction to the volume most representative of this reassessment, Writing Culture, James Clifford pointed to the historical predicament of ethnography, the fact that it is always caught in the invention, not the representation, of cultures.151 He added that in ethnography there are always exclusions, unintentional

50

distortions, the inevitable speaking for the other, and the imposition of meaning. In short, ethnography enacts power relations that are invariably unequal.152 For this reason, according to Clifford, there must be a recognition that ethnographic truths are thus inherently partialcommitted and incomplete (emphasis in original).153 Such partiality does not mean falsehood or merely the opposite of fact; instead, it suggests that all historical truths are partial in the ways they are systematic and exclusive.154 Several years prior to Cliffords pronouncement, Geertz had stated, what we call data are really our own constructions of other peoples constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to; as such, they are fictions, in the sense that they are something made, something fashioned, which, again, does not mean they are false.155 In this regard, Clifford and Geertz were articulating the larger position already emanating from post-structuralism, namely the impossibility of finding universal Truth. Despite its problematics, the project of ethnography was not abandoned; instead, the new ethnography was to be self-reflexive and based on dialogue instead of visualism (e.g. observation and description).156 It also emphasized letting the subjects of the fieldwork speak; in other words, seeing them as co-authors in the final product of the research.157 Ironically, however, the critique and supposedly new path forged in the volume Writing Culture enacted the very exclusions and silences it was purportedly rectifying by including only one female scholar (a literary critic). The sad (and to some, infuriating) irony of this omission was certainly not lost on feminist ethnographers, who viewed it as one more confirmation of the way ethnographic authority is grounded in a

51

predominantly white masculine subjectivity and a male gaze that relegates those others women, people of color to the margins in spite of itself.158 However, if ethnography is by its very nature exclusionary and othering, and always a form of symbolic violence, can a feminist ethnography be any different? Some feminists have certainly sought to posit a uniquely feminist ethnography as the basis for understanding womens lives. In such a view, the supposedly female qualities of empathy and intuition and womens propensity to focus on the interpersonal and experiential become the basis for a methodology that is able to avoid the unequal power relations, exploitation, and false objectivity associated with traditional research methods.159 This view of a feminist ethnography aligns with feminist standpoint theory, which argues that women, as a subordinate group, have a privileged position from which to understand male supremacy and to critique androcentric structures and ideologies embedded in patriarchy and capitalism.160 Nevertheless, a notion of a distinctly feminist ethnography has two major flaws. The first is that relying on womens greater propensity for empathy, feeling, or other feminine qualities quickly leads to essentialism, where an inherent female nature reinstantiates the very binaries and othering that feminist ethnography is supposed to break down. The second problem is that both this form of feminist ethnography and the feminist standpoint rely on womens experience and their articulation of this experience to reach certain truths, and they both posit a self-knowing, authentic subject that can speak the truth of their real situation through language. Early versions of feminist ethnography often assumed they could be more sensitive to the relations of power in dealing with their research subjects. Womens experience, particularly in standpoint 52

theory, is supposed to create truer knowledge because it comes from a marginalized group that thus has a privileged perspective. This truth is meant to displace biased, totalizing accounts of history and social relations. In either case, the authenticity of experience and the ability for reflexivity to prevent bias are presumed. However, Foucaultian theories of discourse and power trouble these assumptions. In Experience, Joan Scott addresses the problems with relying on experience as uncontestable evidence, particularly to illuminate the lives of marginalized groups.161 As Scott argues, experience cannot simply be taken at face value; instead, an investigation of a groups experience must always include an analysis of how difference is socially constructed and constituted by discourse, and how discourses function to produce experience in specific, historical conjunctures. It means not looking at the products of difference but at the way power operates to produce subjects through discourse. Thus, Scott maintains the need to understand the operations of the complex and changing discursive processes by which identities are ascribed, resisted, or embraced and which processes themselves are unremarked.162 Such an assertion does not deny human agency; indeed, Scott insists that people do have agency. However, this agency is never fully free but will be enabled or constrained by discourse. Such an understanding of experience connects back to Alcoffs notion of positionality, recognizing as it does that experience does not constitute a form of authenticity but rather evolves from a network of power relations and discourses. Acknowledging the socially constructed nature of experience means we can still maintain it as a mode for understanding. As Ann Gray states, experience is an

53

important epistemological category because it is the primary way we know our own and others ways of being in the world.163 Reconciling Ethnography and Experience An understanding of the problems inherent in ethnography and the workings of power and discourse in producing experience underscore the methodology used in this study in several ways. This study is grounded in migrant womens articulation of their lived experience as it relates to their use of mobile phones. It also depends on my contact with them as well as my interpretation of our interactions. Like all experience, this body of experience is socially constructed and produced by discourse. I make no claim that as a marginalized group migrant women somehow have access to a more authentic experience based on their particular standpoint. At the same time, a recognition of the socially constructed nature of experience enables deeper questions about the way knowledge is produced and whose knowledge gets to count. It also suggests that attending to the variety of migrant womens experiences can serve to disrupt any notion of a unified, stable migrant woman.164 Ann Gray astutely notes that the very recalcitrance of experience is the strongest argument for its retention.165 It is a way to tap into peoples understanding of their place in the world, the practices that anchor (or disrupt) this position, and the feelings and emotions attached to such practices and positions. At the same time, it acknowledges that, in Geertz words, cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete.166 In addition to recognizing the problem with experience yet still retaining experience as research evidence, throughout my fieldwork I also strove for the constant reflexivity demanded of an ethnographic inquiry that attempts to avoid or at least 54

minimize its potentially marginalizing tendencies. Perhaps the biggest problems that remain with ethnography are power differentials between researcher and subjects as well as an othering and essentializing of these subjects. My own background as a white, middle class, American doctoral candidate perhaps could not be further removed from that of the women in my study, many of whom came from extremely poor families and often did not have more than a middle-school education (many had less). At the same time, however, they had intricate knowledge of Chinese culture that I did not necessarily have. I can also only hope that my own instances of being othered in China gave me greater empathy to the situation of migrant women in Beijing. During that first trip to Changchun described in the introduction, I was clearly an outsider someone who struggled with language, different customs, strange food, disorientation, and loneliness (there were no telephones in our dorm and letters to or from the U.S. could take 10 days or more). At the parks and open markets with friends, crowds would regularly gather to see what the laowai (foreigner, or literally esteemed outsider) were looking at. Occasionally someone would touch my blonde hair or point at my blue eyes, which could either be amusing or disconcerting depending on the circumstances. While living in Beijing in the early nineties though I was not quite such an oddity, there were still several instances in which my otherness was driven home, such as the seemingly constant desire of vendors in the open markets to cheat the rich foreigner and the frequent shouts by passersby on the streets of laowai, or even waiguolao (foreign devil) when I visited a southern province.

55

Though nowadays in Beijing westerners rarely evoke any of these reactions, these memories remained with me as I conducted my fieldwork. I do not mean to downplay my position of privilege compared to the women in my study, who in the city are treated as outsiders, though in their own country. And certainly our relationships were framed by issues of class, race, nationality, and unequal access to social and cultural capital. Yet, for all of these reasons I was also somewhat of an object of curiosity for them. As Wendy Weiss notes, There is objectification on both sides, which is part of the process of understanding begun by defining ourselves first through the opposition of the other.167 This process of understanding proceeds through dialogue, exploration, and what the Chinese call huxiang bangzhu, or mutual help. As much as the women in my study gave to me of their time, knowledge, friendship, and even handmade gifts I hope I also gave back to them, through helping them with their limited English, occasionally serving as a translator with customers, taking some of them on first-time outings to Starbucks or Baskin-Robbins, and, most importantly, showing them respect and that their lives mattered. As Julie Bettie points out in the introduction to her study of Mexican-American and white girls in an American high school, to perform reflexive ethnography means recognizing the fact of the power we wield, the power of interpretation. The text is not simply the result of an even negotiation between ethnographer and subject, because in the end authority literally remains with the ethnographer, as author of the text.168 In other words, regardless of my desire to let womens voices speak in this study, and for them to articulate their own understanding of what mobile phones mean in their lives in terms of identity, relationships with others, feelings of agency and autonomy, or 56

subordination ultimately the final interpretation is mine. Nonetheless, I hope the end result is what Donna Haraway calls a joining of partial views.169 Feminist ethnography is not feminist because it is conducted by women who, as women, have certain inherent traits. Instead, it is based on an acknowledgment of power relations, a desire to let silenced voices speak, intersubjectivity between researcher and participants, and perhaps most crucially, reflexivity.170 As Elizabeth Bird states in her study of how different audiences experience various media, All anthropological approaches are characterized by constraints; the key is to be flexible, tailor ones ethnographic encounter to a particular situation, and be aware of the possible impact of methodological choices.171 She adds that we must also be both creative and reflective about the methodological choices we make, especially since all methodologies perform ideological work.172 Thus, the politics of ethnography cannot be erased, nor should they be. For it is ethnographys politics that forces recognition and negotiation of issues of power and difference, and by extension potential realizations of social change. The Fieldwork Sites In order to study the mobile phone use of rural-to-urban migrant women in the low-level service sector, as mentioned earlier I chose three main types of sites: restaurants, marketplaces, and hair/beauty salons. Three main considerations guided my selection of these sites. First, the majority of prior ethnographic research involving female migrants in China has been conducted among workers in southern factories or with domestic workers.173 The small number of studies examining the mobile phone use 57

of migrant workers (male and female) has also been carried out among factory workers in the south (using interviews and focus groups).174 In order to add to, but not duplicate, this body of knowledge I chose work sites that employ a large number of migrants yet have remained relatively unexamined. Another reason, and one that is more important methodologically, is that a major goal of this study was to see how mobile phones were integrated into the daily lives of migrant women. The very public nature of these sites meant that I could observe mobile phone use in natural, everyday contexts. Finally, ease of access was another crucial concern. Obtaining permission to conduct an ethnography of a factory would have entailed jumping through numerous bureaucratic hoops; gaining access to several peoples private homes in order to interact with domestic workers as they went about their daily tasks would have raised equally difficult hurdles. Aside from restaurants, marketplaces, and beauty salons, a number of more official locations became important for making connections with migrant women. The first of these is the Beijing Cultural Development Center for Rural Women (BCDCRW), which has several programs for both rural and migrant women and also oversees the Migrant Womens Club (dagongmei zhi jia) and the Practical Skills Training Center for Rural Women (PSTCRW). In July 2005 I met Chen Shanshan, a project officer at BCDCRW, and she served as an invaluable resource through introducing me to staff at the Center who were very gracious in spending time with me when I visited there, showing me their website, updating me on various projects, and discussing the content of the publications of the Center, including Rural Women magazine (formerly Rural Women Knowing All), the first and only monthly magazine

58

targeted at rural women. Through Chen Shanshan I also gained access to both the PSTCRW and the Migrant Womens Club. The PSTCRW provides a variety of free short-term courses in subjects such as computer training, hair styling, and waitressing, along with free room and board as well as job placement for rural women who are selected mostly from impoverished villages in provinces outside Beijing. During Fall 2006 I went to the school every week and interacted with a group of 32 young women who were enrolled in a three-month computer course at the school. I was able to follow their progress from the time of their arrival, through their training and graduation, and then with half of them, their job placement in Beijing. This allowed me to gain a better understanding of their transition from rural to urban life and from being non-users of technology (due to lack of resources) to gaining technological skills, becoming dagongmei, and, in many cases, purchasing their first mobile phone. The Migrant Womens Club was established in 1996 by urban intellectuals to provide a home away from home for migrant women in Beijing. The Club offers various types of training, support services, and social networking opportunities for migrant women (and men) in Beijing. It also produces several publications designed to educate migrant women about their rights and to build their self-capacity. The Club has a large number of members; however, because it is fairly well-known in China and abroad, it tends to be a bit overrun by foreign scholars and activists who use the Club as a resource for meeting migrant women and conducting research. Many long-term members have occasionally expressed resentment about this situation, and for this reason I attended very few of the Clubs activities. However, two of its staff members 59

were nonetheless very supportive of my research and introduced me to select Club members, invited me to Club activities, and took me to migrant markets and schools in Beijing. A final organization that was very important in the course of my fieldwork was the Culture and Communication Center for Facilitators. Usually known simply as Facilitator, it was established by Li Tao and Li Zhen in 2003 to serve the migrant population in Beijing.175 Like the Migrant Womens Club it provides rural-to-urban migrants with a variety of resources and training courses, and it is also a place for members to go in the evenings to eat dinner and socialize. Shortly after I arrived in Beijing in September 2006 a Chinese friend introduced me to Li Tao and Li Zhen, and they agreed to allow me to participate in the Centers Sunday afternoon activities. These were usually training sessions on topics ranging from labor laws to medical benefits. I also attended monthly birthday parties and holiday gatherings. In addition, I volunteered as an English teacher and taught Friday evening courses in the fall and in the spring. At Facilitator I was able to interview several migrant workers, and I became friends with seven women that I saw on a semi-regular basis. I also gained a much better understanding not only of the legal situation for migrants in Beijing, but also their feelings about their experience in the city. Participant Observation A significant part of this study involved spending a large amount of time at various research sites interacting with migrant women. Nearly everyday I went to a hair salon, a restaurant, or a marketplace, and sometimes I went to more than one location per day. Each type of site required a slightly different approach to gathering data due to 60

the variety of work environments in terms of both job requirements and schedules. I call this participant observation to emphasize that though at times I did only observe at various locales, more often than not I engaged in conversations with women about their everyday lives. Much of this conversation was about mobile phone use, and most women were more than willing to show me some of the text messages they had sent and received, let me look at pictures in their phones, and allow me to see who was in their phone address books. We also talked about everything from work to family to boyfriends to television shows. Many women also asked me questions about the U.S. or about the English language (nearly all of them had studied English though few of them could speak more than a few words or sentences). In Beijing I visited about twenty hair salons, ranging from a tiny, no-frills, twowoman shop whose patrons were primarily residents in the old alleyway (hutong) in which it was located, to an upscale, trendy, French-managed salon that drew a largely foreign clientele from the business and diplomatic communities. I also went to some beauty salons that only gave foot massages or manicures and pedicures. Most of the salons where I spent a significant amount of time offered relatively inexpensive services (e.g. 15 yuan about $2.00 for a haircut, 10 yuan for a hair wash and a shoulder massage) to a range of customers who were mainly Chinese.176 They were mid-sized establishments with from six to 18 employees (usually with more women than men), all of whom were young and from rural areas. Some were crowded with side-by-side and back-to-back stations and others were a bit more spacious. Almost all of them were brightly painted inside and often had pictures of young stylish Chinese men and women (usually movie stars or models) on the walls. 61

The hair salons were perhaps the easiest place to observe and have conversations with migrant women due to the fact that when they were not busy most women spent their time at the salon relatively freely. They often chatted, sent text messages, thumbed through magazines, or did each others hair. During my stay in Beijing I frequented five salons on a regular basis and was able to establish a good rapport with fourteen female employees as well as a few males. I usually went in the afternoons to chat with the women and observe how their phone use was integrated into their work lives. I also had frequent hair washes and shoulder massages, which provided a good way to talk as well as compensate the women for their time. In these salons I became a regular client, a participant observer, an informal English tutor, and, with a few women, a friend. During my stay in Beijing, not surprisingly I visited dozens of dining establishments as a customer, but compared to the hair salons it was much more difficult to gather rich ethnographic data in a restaurant environment. For a number of reasons, not least of which concerned social etiquette, I could not go behind the scenes and observe the interaction that went on in the kitchen, I could not linger at a table for an extended period of time unless I continued to order food or drinks (a bit hard to do when one is on ones own, easier to do when there is a group, which wasnt always the case), and with one exception I was not allowed to observe training sessions or other types of employee-employer meetings. Although I was able to interview several waitresses all of whom worked in common (putong) or home-style (jiachang) restaurants, meaning they were average priced and did not serve exotic dishes my most extensive participant observation occurred at only three restaurants where I had connections (guanxi) via Chinese friends. I visited two of these restaurants 62

(where I knew five women) about once a week, usually during lunch or dinner, and sometimes during the afternoon lull, though not as frequently since employees usually took a nap at this time. Because the third restaurant was quite a distance from my home, I went there every two to three weeks to talk to the waitresses I knew and occasionally to chat with the boss as well. Beijing has a vast array of shopping venues spread throughout the city, including large department stores, whole city blocks lined with small clothing stores, and glitzy shopping malls filled with designer boutiques. There are also several huge marketplaces located in vast structures with four or five floors, each jammed with row upon row of stalls occupied by vendors hawking everything from small electronics, to designer purses and watches, to name brand athletic shoes and clothing (all of it fake). I visited all of these types of shopping venues on several occasions, but spent extended time at two small clothing stores and in three different large marketplaces with eight women. In the migrant enclaves that sit on the outskirts of the city there are also markets, many of them outdoors. These markets are vastly different from the other markets in terms of the goods that are sold cooking utensils, inexpensive, poorly made clothing, produce, spices and in terms of the people: all of the customers as well as the vendors (most of them small entrepreneurs) are migrants. I occasionally went to one of these migrant markets to chat with two different women who had been introduced to me through a staff member of the Migrant Womens Club. Interviews In addition to participant observation, I conducted over 70 interviews with ruralto-urban migrant women. These interviewees included some of the women mentioned at 63

the various sites above, women I met through the different NGOs, and the 32 young women enrolled at the school. I also conducted interviews with 17 male migrants. Some interviews were done during work hours and thus were interrupted or cut short, but about two thirds of the total number of interviews were in-depth and lasted over an hour. With women I saw frequently, it was easy to follow-up after the initial interview in order to fill in gaps. In other words, often an interview led to a more long-term relationship and sometimes vice versa. Interviews always began with questions about basic demographic and employment information, which were followed by questions about traditional media and then mobile phone usage (see Appendix 1). Originally I had intended to ask questions about computer use and wireless music devices as well, in order to situate womens mobile phone use within their whole new communication technology ecology (as indicated on the interview questionnaire in Appendix 1). However, most women did not use the Internet or used it so rarely that these questions were most often not used. The same was the case with portable music players. Interviews were conducted in a semi-structured fashion, and this meant that often interviews led in directions that were unexpected but extremely fruitful. When possible, interviews were recorded and then transcribed. During some early interviews I had a translator accompany me, but I found that this often broke up the flow of the interview, so eventually I conducted all interviews on my own. In addition to interviewing migrant workers, I also interviewed three employers: two that owned hair salons and one that ran a data-input company. I also conducted

64

interviews with two staff members at the NGOs mentioned earlier as well as with the director, director of education, and two computer instructors at the PSTCRW. Mobile Phone Diaries Towards the end of the research period, I asked seven women and two men that I knew fairly well to fill out mobile phone diaries. The purpose was for them to document their mobile phone use for four days over a one-week period. The format of the diaries was adapted from the work of Mizuko Ito.177 Participants were instructed to record the date, time, context, and content of all voice calls, text messages, mobile Internet use, camera use, file downloading or sending, and game playing during an entire day (see Appendix 2). They were also asked to document whether there were any problems with the intended use of their phone (such as poor reception). Once the diaries were collected, translated, and analyzed, follow-up interviews were conducted to generate deeper insights into what emerged as key moments of communication and certain trends in usage. Supplemental Materials MacKay and Gillespies extension of the social shaping of technology emphasizes that technology appropriation must be understood from a range of perspectives, including that of designers and advertisers. Though I was unable to interview any designers or marketers, I gathered a number of print materials on mobile phones to supplement my fieldwork. These included pamphlets with cell phone and cell phone service offers, advertising postcards, and newspaper and magazine ads. I also visited mobile phone shops across the city and spoke with salespeople about the different types of phones for sale and the perceived clientele for such phones. In addition, I took numerous photographs of mobile phone ads in Beijing especially on billboards and on 65

placards at bus stops and in subway stations. I used these materials to understand the various popular discourses associated with cell phones in Beijing. Through using a variety of data gathering techniques in several locations and among a diverse group of migrant women, I sought to accumulate a wide range of uses and perceptions of mobile phones. As my fieldwork progressed, common themes emerged in terms of usage patterns, and I was able to adjust my interviews and conversations accordingly. For example, it soon became apparent that question 14 on the interview sheet, which asks whether the respondent has a service contract or uses pre-paid phone cards, was irrelevant since none of the migrants I knew had a service plan (nor did I). At the same time, there were frequent surprises, such as the manner in which some women used camera phones. By attending to both the expected, and what Carlo Ginzberg calls an interpretive method based on taking marginal and irrelevant details as clues, I was able to discover some of the playful ways that women engaged with their phones as well as the profound importance a mobile phone could have in a womans life.178 As I analyzed my data, a wide range of socio-techno practices linked especially to mobile phone use emerged. By socio-techno practices, I mean the ways in which technology, in this case a cell phone, is integrated into existing social practices and at the same time opens up new spaces or possibilities for their enactment within the specific social world and material conditions of users. Such practices may be connected to identity construction, sociality, and autonomy vis--vis other social actors and

66

structures, though others might reinforce or enable dominant-subordinate relationships. Socio-techno practices are always produced within a particular discursive context. Overview of the Chapters The remainder of this dissertation explores how within the processes of Chinas marketization and entry into the global economy, and the concomitant forces of modernization, migration, and informatization, mobile phones occupy an increasingly central role in identity construction, individual autonomy, and social networking among rural-to-urban migrant women in Beijing. Chapter two focuses on the specific socio-cultural context of contemporary China at the beginning of the 21st century. I discuss the reforms of the post-Mao period, the urban/rural divide perpetuated by the household registration system (hukou), Chinas discourse of development and modernity, and how these serve to configure rural women ideologically as an other to be reformed and improved. Rural-to-urban migration, the consumer revolution, and the development of Chinas telecommunications infrastructure are explained and highlighted as factors contributing to migrant womens positionality. These forces also create spaces of liminality that potentially trouble the binaries of rural/urban, traditional/modern, and backward/developed. Throughout the discussion I emphasize how gender ideologies have played a pivotal role in all of these processes during both the Mao-era planned economy and Chinas reform-era embrace of markets and global capitalism. In chapter three I situate the mobile phone specifically within Chinas quest for development and modernity. I begin with a discussion of the central tenets of modernity 67

as well as the notion of other or alternative modernities as a way to get beyond binaries of East/West and Center/Periphery. I also discuss Foucaults concepts of power and discipline, as well as feminist interventions that bring gender into a Foucaultian analysis. I then argue that for rural-to-urban migrant women, a mobile phone is an important signifier of modernity and something that distinguishes them from their rural peers. I also show that socio-techno practices associated with cell phones serve as a form of both symbolic and cultural capital. In addition, cell phones allow women to participate in a form of consumer citizenship (or the comfortable life promised by the government) in contrast to the legal and social citizenship they are denied in the city. Another key point in this chapter is that discourses surrounding mobile phone use align with notions of gender essentialism that have become prominent in the post-Mao era. In the final section of the chapter, I discuss how mobile phones bring about new modes of discipline and normalization. In chapter four I develop a theory of immobile mobility, a socio-techno practice for overcoming spatial, temporal, and discursive constraints via the cell phone. For women who work long hours, rarely have time off, and are often separated from friends outside of colleagues by far distances, a mobile phone becomes a crucial tool for maintaining social networks in ways that were not possible before. A cell phone also allows women to expand networks and build guanxi (personal connections) as well as enrich friendships. In this chapter, I also discuss how immobile mobility is achieved through migrant womens creative use of camera phones. A final theme explored is the way that mobile phones allow for greater autonomy in dating through a mix of

68

traditional and technological. Immobile mobility thus allows migrant women to forge new ties and explore new sexual identities, though within established norms of sociality. Chapter five discusses mobile phones and labor by examining how migrant women use cell phones as tools of resistance at work, and, conversely, how employers utilize mobile phones for purposes of surveillance. I show that while cell phones offer migrant women a way to express their agency in the workplace through small and primarily symbolic modes of resistance, employers can use mobile phones to reinforce traditional, patriarchal relationships. I argue that employers use of cell phones as a method of control and their perception of mobile phones as contributing to migrant womens individualization and insubordination reveal that the practical and discursive construction of any technology is a form of power. Finally, I examine whether mobile phones can enhance migrant womens economic opportunities, such as by helping to increase their income or find a better job. In the conclusion I tie together the various themes and provide a final analysis of the role of mobile phones in rural womens identity construction, sociality, and autonomy. I avoid an either/or empowerment vs. subjugation argument and instead provide a more nuanced account of the ways that new communication technologies such as mobile phones can be used both to enhance and constrain individual and collective autonomy and agency, and reinforce traditional gender identities as well as open up new possibilities of gender identification among migrant women in Beijing. I conclude by discussing the implications of the research and directions for further study.

69

Chapter One Endnotes 1. Appadurai, Modernity at Large, 33. 2. Ibid., 32. 3. Ibid., 3. 4. Ibid., 4. 5. Ibid., 31. 6. See, for example, Castells et al., Mobile Communication and Society, chapter seven. 7. Castells, Power of Identity, 1. 8. Castells, Informationalism, Networks, 23. 9. Ibid., 26. 10. Calhoun, Social Theory and Politics of Identity, 10, 12. 11. Castells, Power of Identity, 6-7. 12. Hall, Who Needs Identity? 4. 13. Ibid. 14. Foucault, Two Lectures, 93. 15. See, for example, Foucault, The Subject and Power. 16. I will discuss in further detail Foucaults notion of power and its relevance for this project in chapter three. 17. Hall, Ethnicity, 344. 18. Hall, Who Needs Identity? 6. 19. Gaetano, Filial Daughters, 42-43. 20. De Lauretis, Technologies of Gender, 9. 70

21. Lorber, Believing is Seeing, 19 22. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 21. 23. Ibid., 11. 24. Brownell and Wasserstrom point out that the original Daoist concept of yin/yang privileged female/nature over male/culture. However, Confucian philosophy, which dominated Chinese thought and social life from the sixth century B.C. until the early twentieth century, reversed this concept and as such it became more like the western dualism of male/female. Brownell and Wasserstrom also make an interesting point that yin and yang were expressed complementary, hierarchical relationships that were not necessarily between males and females, even though yang was typically associated with masculine and yin with feminine principles, in Theorizing Femininities and Masculinities, 26. 25. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 15-16. On yin/yang in Chinese medical discourse see Furth, Blood, Body, and Gender. 26. Butler, Gender Trouble, 33. 27. Ibid., 184. 28. Riley, Am I that Name?, 1-2. 29. The Qing dynasty, Chinas last imperial dynasty, lasted from 1644-1912. 30. Barlow, Theorizing Women, 49. 31. Ibid. 32. Alcoff, Cultural Feminism, 347. 33. Ibid., 349. 34. Hall, Ethnicity, 345. 35. Ibid. 36. Zhang, Urban Experiences and Social Belonging, 275. 37. Bhabha, Location of Culture, 5. 38. Ibid., 159. 71

39. See, for example, Friedman, Hybridization of Roots. 40. Frello, Dark Blood, 6. 41. Hall, Ethnicity, 340. The four great decenterings to which Hall refers are the result of Marxist notions of subject construction, Freuds discovery of the unconscious, Saussurian linguistics that posits that language constructs reality and not the reverse, and the critique of Enlightenment, totalizing universal discourses of Knowledge and Truth, 341. 42. Liu, Otherness of Self, xi. 43. Ibid., 128. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid., 160-161. 46. Ibid., 47-49, 96. 47. Ibid., 171. 48. The post-Mao era officially started in 1978, following the death in 1976 of Mao Zedong and the prosecution of the Gang of Four (who were blamed for all of the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution see note 1 in Chapter 2), and the subsequent rise to power of Deng Xiaoping and his initiation of market reforms. The speed of reforms after 1992 and the further marketization of the economy ushered in what is now often called post-socialist or sometimes late-socialist China. 49. Ibid., 47, 48. 50. Ibid., 96. 51. See, for example, Crenshaw, Beyond Racism and Misogyny. 52. Pun remarks on the triple oppressions of the Chinese dagongmei by global capitalism, state socialism, and familial patriarchy that work hand in hand to produce particular labor exploitations along lines of class, gender, and rural-urban disparity in Made in China, 4. Feng also highlights the importance of gender, class, and place in understanding Chinas female migrant workers in Women Migrant Workers. Neither of these scholars, however, uses the term intersectionality or cites Crenshaws work. 53. Pun, Made in China, 111. 72

54. Lee, Gender and the South China Miracle, 109. 55. Ibid., 128. 56. Pun, Made in China, 12. 57. Ibid., 11. 58. Yan, Spectralization of the Rural, 586. 59. Claude Fischer, America Calling, 8. 60. This definition comes from Winner, Do Artifacts Pave Politics? 20. As the title of his piece suggests, he clearly does not advocate this view. 61. Pinch and Bijker, The Social Construction of Facts; Edge, Social Shaping of Technology. 62. Later revisions of the SCOT approach acknowledged the mutual shaping of technologies and social groups. See, for example the concept of sociotechnical ensembles in Bijker, Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs, 277. 63. Slack and Wise, Culture + Technology, 4. 64. Ibid., 97. 65. Hall and Grossberg, On Postmodernism and Articulation, 1. 66. Hall, cited in Slack, Theory and Method, 115. 67. Slack, Theory and Method, 125. 68. Ibid. 69. Slack and Wise, Culture + Technology, 113. 70. Ibid. 71. Ibid., 128. 72. Ibid., 130. 73. Mackay and Gillespie, Extending the Social Shaping. 73

74. Ibid., 698-99. 75. Ibid. 76. Ibid., 702. 77. Ibid., 704. 78. Ito, Introduction: Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, 6. 79. Ito, Personal Portable Pedestrian (conference paper), 2. 80. Many mobile phone studies refer to Erving Goffmans notions of interaction ritual and front stage, back stage perhaps because much of the early mobile phone research was conducted by sociologists and anthropologists, not communication scholars (the exception, of course, is James Katz). 81. Carey, Communication as Culture, 15. 82. Ibid., 18. 83. Ibid., 23. 84. Ibid., 29. 85. McLuhan, Understanding Media, 45. 86. Oksman and Rautiainen, Extension of the Hand, 104; Ito, New Set of Rules. 87. Ito, Introduction: Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, 1. 88. See, for example, Fujimoto, Third-Stage Paradigm; see also Yue, Mobile Phone Demonstrates Individuality. 89. David Turchetti, SMS Craze Unlocks Way, 16. 90. Ling and Yttri Hyper-coordination via Mobile Phones, 163-164. 91. Cohen and Wakeford, Making of Mobility, 8. 92. Ling and Yttri, Hyper-coordination via Mobile Phones, 161-162. See also, Carroll et al., A Field Study. 93. Green, Outwardly Mobile, 207. 74

94. Nafus and Tracey, Mobile Phone Consumption, 213. 95. Chu and Yang, Mobile Phones and New Migrant Workers, 232; Wang, Youth Culture, Music. 96. Lobet-Maris, Mobile Phone Tribes, 87. 97. http://www.nokiausa.com/fashion/landing?cpid=ILC-1007-020. 98. Ling, The Mobile Connection, 85. 99. Ling, Fashion and Vulgarity, 97-98. 100. Katz and Sugiyama, Mobile Phones as Fashion Statements, 64. 101. Rheingold, Will the Telephone's Transition. 102. Fortunati, Italy: Stereotypes, 54. 103. Green, Outwardly Mobile, 205. 104. Pierre Bourdieu defines social capital as ones networks and the benefits that accrue from those networks. Such networks must be constantly reaffirmed and maintained. See Forms of Capital, 248-50. I will discuss social capital in more depth in chapter four. 105. Fox, Evolution, Alienation and Gossip. 106. See, for example, Ling et al., Mobile Communication and Social Capital; see also Sugiyama and. Katz, Social Conduct, Social Capital. 107. Johnsen, Social Context of Mobile, 167. 108. Taylor and Harper, The Gift of the Gab? 268. 109. Ling and Yttri, Hyper-coordination via Mobile Phones, 140. 110. Ibid. 111. Ibid., 158. 112. Ito and Okabe, Technosocial Situations, 264.

75

113. Many of the pieces in Katz and Aakhus Perpetual Contact mention this aspect of mobile telephony among teens and young adults. 114. Law and Peng, Use of Mobile Phones, 245. 115. Horst and Miller, The Cell Phone, see chapter five. 116. Ito, "Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, 139; Ling and Yttri, Hypercoordination via Mobile Phones, 152. 117. Castells et al., Mobile Communication and Society, 247. 118. See, for example, Ling, The Mobile Connection, chapter three; see also Oksman and Rautiainen, Perhaps it's a Body Part, 295-297. 119. Anonymous. I Want Your Text. 120. Cockburn, Circuit of Technology, 32. 121. Skog, Mobiles and the Norwegian Teen, 256. 122. Oksman and Rautiainen, Extension of the Hand, 107. 123. Oksman and Rautiainen, Perhaps it's a Body Part, 297. 124. Skog, Mobiles and the Norwegian Teen, 262-263. 125. Plant, On the Mobile, 12. 126. Lemish and Cohen, On the Gendered Nature, 518-520. 127. Nordli and Srensen, Diffusion as Inclusion? 128. Cingular Wireless, Guys Still Gab More. 129. IDC What Makes Mobile Users Tick? 130. Castells, Rise of the Network Society, 424. 131. Ibid., 442. 132. Castells et al., Mobile Communication and Society, 172. 133. Castells, Rise of the Network Society, 443. 76

134. Plant, On the Mobile, 23. 135. See, for example, Matsuda, Discourses of Keitai in Japan. 136. Gergen, Challenge of Absent Presence, 227. 137. Ling and Yttri, Hyper-coordination via Mobile Phones, 139. 138. Kim, Korea: Personal Meanings, 70. 139. Ito, "Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, 143. 140. Townsend, Mobile Communication in the Twenty-first Century City, 71. 141. Laurier, Why People Say Where They are. 142. Ito, "Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, 142. 143. Katz and Aakhus, A Theory of Apparatgeist. 144. The two major exceptions are Ito, "Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and Ling, Control, Emancipation, and Status 145. Geertz, Thick Description, 7. 146. In addition to these methods I also conducted a survey among rural-to-urban migrant workers in Beijing with 275 male and female respondents, but the results are not included as part of this analysis. 147. On the development and deployment of scientific anthropological methods in the early twentieth century see Clifford, On Ethnographic Authority. 148. Ibid., 24. 149. Clifford, Partial Truths 10. 150. Ibid., 12. 151. Ibid., 2. 152. Ibid., 9. 153. Ibid., 7. 77

154. Ibid., 6. 155. Geertz, Thick Description, 9, 15. 156. Clifford, Partial Truths, 11, 14. 157. Ibid., 15, 17. 158. The major feminist response to Writing Culture appeared in the volume Women Writing Culture. See Behars Introduction: Out of Exile in this volume. 159. For a summary and critique of this viewpoint, see Stacey, Feminist Ethnography? 160. Hartsock, The Feminist Standpoint. 161. Scott, Experience, 24. 162. Ibid, 33. 163. Gray, Research Practice for Cultural Studies, 25. 164. I am indebted to this insight into how to reconcile ethnographic feminist research with Scotts critique of feminists reliance on experience to Banet-Weiser in The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, 13-18. Although her subject is American beauty pageant contestants, a topic about as far removed from Chinese migrant women as could be imagined, her articulation of feminist methodology applied to ethnography is extremely insightful and helpful. 165. Gray, Research Practice for Cultural Studies, 34. 166. Geertz, Thick Description, 29. 167. Wendy A. Weiss, cited in Murphy and Kraidy, International Communication, 315. 168. Bettie, Women without Class, 23. 169. Cited in ibid. 170. See, for example, Lotz, Assessing Qualitative Television Audience Research; see also Visweswaran, Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. 171. Bird, Audience in Everyday Life, 15. 78

172. Ibid., 16. 173. Ethnographic studies of factory workers include Feng, Women Migrant Workers; Lee, Gender and the South China Miracle; and Pun, Made in China. Ethnographies of domestic workers include Arianne Gaetano, Off the Farm and Filial Daughters. See also, Yan, Neoliberal Governmentality and Spectralization of the Rural. 174. See Cartier, Castells, and Qiu, "Information Have-Less; see also Chu and Yang, Mobile Phones and New Migrant Workers; Law and Peng, Use of Mobile Phones. 175. Both Li Tao and Li Zhen had formerly been employed by the Beijing Cultural Development Center, Li Tao as one of those in charge of the Migrant Womens Club and Li Zhen as the editor-in-chief of Rural Women. They both left in 2003 under less than amicable circumstances and set up Facilitator. 176. Throughout this dissertation I use an exchange rate of 7.7 yuan per $1.00, the rate for most of the time I was in Beijing. Since I left Beijing the value of the dollar has fallen against the yuan. 177. Ito, "Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, 132. 178. Ginzburg, Clues: Morelli, Freud, 86.

79

CHAPTER TWO: MARKET REFORMS AND (DIS)CONTINUITY IN POST-SOCIALIST CHINA None of my friends from my village are still at home. Everyone has gone out to work. At home there is nothing. Beijing is developed. Here I can learn something, but at home there is just farming, and Im not good at that. Cui Yiping, Beijing, January 20, 2007. Nearly 30 years ago the Chinese government embarked on a course of development that unleashed processes of change the consequences of which nobody, either inside China or China watchers outside the country, could have predicted. To jumpstart a stagnant economy and make a clear break with the Maoist past, in 1978 the Chinese leadership, under the direction of Deng Xiaoping, boldly embarked on a program of reform and opening (gaige kaifang). Through advancing the four modernizations (in industry, agriculture, science and technology, and defense), China would link tracks with the rest of the world (yu shijie jiegui) and in so doing bring stability and prosperity to a nation still recovering from the economic, political, and social upheaval wrought by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).1 Whereas Maoist modernity had emphasized egalitarianism and perpetual revolution, Chinas new reform path would be based on competition, merit, and an end to class struggle. The last few decades have thus seen a shift from a centralized economy emphasizing heavy industry to a market economy based on export processing (primarily centered in Special Economic Zones [SEZs] around Chinas eastern coastal areas) and the growth of the domestic service sector. The marketization of Chinas economy and its overall course of development have followed a teleology where some must 80

get rich first and then others will follow that emphasizes catching up with other industrialized nations and reclaiming Chinas rightful place on the world stage. It has also necessitated a profound ideological reconfiguration and repudiation of Maoist frugality and austerity, perhaps summed up most succinctly in Deng Xiaopings famous statement, To get rich is glorious (zhi fu guang rong). Indeed, in the 1980s Chinas average annual GDP growth rate was 10.2 percent, compared to just 5.5 percent during the 1970s; in the first half of the 1990s it was 12.8 percent.2 In the last several years this number has continued to hover in the double digits. Certainly many Chinese have benefited materially from the changes brought about by the reforms and Chinas entry into the global market economy. The nations growing urban middle class now has access to new housing with modern amenities, automobiles, myriad forms of leisure and entertainment, and the latest technological devices. The consumer revolution which first emerged in the mid-1980s has been joined since the 1990s by a telecommunications revolution, which has made China the country with both the largest number of mobile phone and Internet users in the world. However, not everyone is benefiting equally from these economic, societal, and technological transformations. Summing up the state of the Peoples Republic at the start of the new millennium, Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen assert, Deng Xiaopings decentralization of economic authority and limited embrace of the market mechanism has paid off. Chinas economy has grown at or near double-digit rates for most of the past two decades. But economic growth has been uneven, benefiting cities over the countryside and coastal areas over the hinterland.3

81

In this chapter, I explore the reasons for and consequences of such uneven development in order to set the context for this study of how rural-to-urban migrant women are engaging with mobile phones for identity construction, agency, autonomy, and sociality in Beijing. I begin by discussing the origins and outcomes of Chinas rigid hukou, or household registration system, and how current economic policies favoring the cities and coastal areas have worked in tandem with the hukou policy to effectively create a bifurcated society divided between the urban and rural areas. Prior to the reforms, those with rural hukou were for the most part destined to a life of agriculture and were separated from their urban counterparts geographically due to strict regulations on mobility. With the economic reforms and the loosening of the hukou policy, however, Chinas cities have become beacons of hope for millions of rural residents who seek employment and opportunities to improve their lives. Following my discussion of the hukou policy I explore the phenomenon of ruralto-urban migration in China with an emphasis on the characteristics, material circumstances, and desires of female migrants, as well as the way Chinas suzhi, or quality, discourse positions female migrants and rural areas as backward while upholding Chinas urban centers as the source of modernity and progress. I then examine Chinas urban consumer revolution and how it has changed peoples sense of identity and autonomy, and close by outlining another revolution in China: the growth of telecommunications, in particular mobile phones. Throughout each part of this discussion, I highlight the key role that gender has played and continues to play in all of these developments, and how the reforms clearly have affected men and women differently in numerous ways. Though I separate all of these phenomena for analytic 82

reasons, in reality they have emerged from interwoven processes that are indeed mutually constitutive, and they are all critical in producing migrant womens understanding of themselves, their position in society, and their engagement with technology in the city. Hukou and the Urban-Rural Divide To fully grasp the current condition of Chinas development and internal migration, it is first necessary to understand Chinas hukou, or household registration system, which according to anthropologists Sulamith Potter and Jack Potter, has created a caste-like system of social stratification in the Peoples Republic of China.4 Though the hukou policy has roots in Imperial Chinas baojia system which was designed as a method of social control and taxation its particular manifestation during the Mao era created an extremely modern and powerful system of population management and organization.5 Today, despite economic liberalization and social transformations that have substantially weakened the hukou as a method for regulating peoples mobility, it still has profound effects in determining ones access to a range of resources and opportunities, and consequently, ones life possibilities. Hukou 1955 1978 In the early days of the Peoples Republic, citizens were allowed to travel relatively freely between city and countryside. However, as urban overcrowding, unemployment, and food shortages prompted fears of social instability, in 1955 the government issued a directive that categorized people as belonging to either agricultural (farmer/peasant) or non-agricultural (worker) households, according to 83

whether they lived in a rural or urban area and regardless of whether some designated as peasants were not actually engaged in agricultural work. Food rationing in cities also began, and in rural areas the government hastened collectivization in order to increase agricultural productivity. Since Maos development strategy emphasized the growth of heavy industry, savings from agriculture was then transferred to support urban industrialization, following a price scissors policy.6 In 1958, with the Regulations on Hukou Registration in the Peoples Republic of China, migration policies were further restricted and control was centralized in the urban Public Security Bureau (PSB). These regulations solidified the hukou policy and dictated that all citizens were for the most part destined to live their lives in their designated hukou location. Household registration was subsequently established at birth, and changes in residence were strictly controlled. Institutionalized separation between rural and urban areas was thus solidified and with few exceptions would remain intact for the next two decades.7 During the Mao era, enforcement of the hukou system was possible due to a Soviet-style centrally planned economy and what Dorothy Solinger has referred to as the urban public goods regime whereby urban residents the vaunted workers were entitled to a range of social welfare benefits such as education, healthcare, employment, and housing allocated through their state work unit.8 They also received food ration coupons based on their possession of an urban hukou. In contrast, rural residents peasant farmers were denied this iron rice bowl and were supposed to be self-sufficient through the rural agricultural cooperatives. In addition to providing grain for themselves, they also had to provide food for people living in cities. Peasants were therefore those who ate rice supplied by the household or the team, while 84

workers were those who ate rice supplied by the state.9 Because urban hukou guaranteed such a wide range of state-provided benefits, it was associated with a better material standard of living and an exclusive, privileged status. Thus, Zhang Li argues that hukou should not be seen only as a system of population management and material redistribution but rather a badge of citizenship with profound social, cultural, and political implications for the lives of Chinese people.10 Though Maos revolution was predicated on peasant support, and in official rhetoric Mao himself glorified poor and middle peasants as the vanguard of Chinas communist revolution, the profound irony of Maos hukou system was that it did not just divide China spatially; it also created a hierarchical distinction between the city and the countryside and between urban and rural residents.11 In fact, many have noted Maos contradictory attitude toward Chinas peasantry. While Chinas communist revolution was indeed a peasant revolution, Mao seemed to agree at least partially with Friedrich Engels, who distrusted peasants as too conservative and thus unable to have proper revolutionary consciousness. It is important to point out, however, that stigmatization of Chinas rural inhabitants has roots far preceding Mao. Confucius voiced disdain for the rural populace, and Chinas reformist intellectuals of the early twentieth century targeted peasants and Chinas countryside as symbolic of Chinas backwardness and weakness. In their thinking, building a modern nation entailed repudiating traditional Chinese culture with its feudalism and superstition that were most deeply rooted in the countryside. As Myron Cohen observes, Chinas farmer peasants the vast majority of the population were thus configured by most reformers as passive, pitiful, and in need 85

of education and guidance by an enlightened, urban elite.12 It was also during this time that the word peasant (nongmin) entered into Chinese vocabulary, a result of Japanese influence. As an abstract modern word, it could take on a powerful discursive function as one of the basic negative criteria designating a new status group, one held by definition to be incapable of creative and autonomous participation in Chinas reconstruction (emphasis in original).13 Hence, the urban-centered hukou policy was one area where Maos revolution ideologically paralleled the past it was supposedly burying. The hukou policy also demonstrated continuity with Chinas patriarchal, institutionalized gender discrimination. Though lineage in China traditionally derives through the male, and Maos class labels were also inherited through the father, until 1998 a childs hukou was passed on through the mother. This policy, which obviously contradicted Chinese custom, was meant to limit mobility as much as possible.14 Though hukou policy strictly controlled peoples movement during the Mao era, the ways in which ones hukou status could be changed unfairly advantaged men. For example, joining the army was one viable route, since after being discharged one might receive a job as a worker in an urban area. Another possibility was through passing the university entrance exam and gaining admission to an urban university. Becoming a Communist Party member and moving up the Party ranks could also lead to a change in hukou status. In all cases, men held a distinct advantage over women. By designating that hukou pass through the mother, the state effectively limited its economic obligations should a male with urban hukou have dependents with rural hukou.15 On the other hand, the most common way for rural women to change their hukou was through 86

marriage migration. However, this usually meant a change from one village to another in other words a change in hukou location not status since marriages between urban and rural people were (and are) extremely rare. Even if such marriages took place, these unions would not result in transference of a rural hukou to an urban one. Thus, rural womens geographic (rural-to-urban) and social mobility was severely restricted by the hukou policy. Economic Reforms and Inequality When the Chinese government instituted market reforms in the late seventies it first focused on rural areas. Agricultural collectives were dismantled and the household responsibility system was instituted, which enabled rural households to hold long-term land leases and to gain more decision making in agricultural production. Greater agricultural efficiency created more surplus labor, which at first was absorbed by township and village enterprises (TVEs) that were developed in rural areas under a policy of leaving the land but not the village (litu bu lixiang). Limited markets were also permitted, and as a result of such policies peasant farmers benefited tremendously. From the late seventies to the mid-eighties the ratio of urban to rural per capita personal income dropped from 2.37:1 to 1.70:1.16 Market mechanisms also meant that access to food and other goods in urban areas were not necessarily linked to urban hukou, and peasant farmers could sell their surplus grain and produce and offer other menial services in market towns. All of these conditions enabled the beginnings of Chinas rural-to-urban migration. In the mid-eighties, however, the state changed its reform focus from agriculture to export processing and integration with the global economy. One result was that the 87

TVEs shifted to a capital intensive rather than a labor intensive approach and thus were less able to accommodate rural surplus labor.17 At the same time, central government policies favored eastern coastal cities as targets for development, with Special Economic Zones (SEZs) created to attract a large amount of foreign direct investment (FDI). For example, although before the mid-eighties there was very little foreign capital in China, in 1995 China received $35.9 billion of FDI, nearly 40 percent of all of the FDI that the worlds low- and middle-income countries received that year.18 Shenzhen near the Hong Kong border, Chinas first SEZ, was established in 1980 and since then has gone from a rural backwater to a city of over 12 million with an average annual growth rate of 28 percent.19 Though poverty had sharply declined during the first years of the reforms, inequality in income distribution, especially between urban and rural areas, started to rise after the mid-eighties. As Azizur Khan and Carl Riskin explain, the architects of Chinas policies thought that just about everyone would benefit from the reforms, so that: any increase in inequality would be accompanied by a reduction in povertyi.e., a decline in the proportion of population below some absolute level of income representing a minimum acceptable standard of living. The official view was that a rising tide lifts all boats, and the expectation was clearly that the increase in inequality would not be great enough to outweigh the effect of higher growth and thus to induce greater poverty.20 However, though China through its reforms had managed to greatly enhance its economic efficiency, this was at the cost of economic equity. By the mid-nineties China had become one of developing Asias more unequal countries. Urban workers who were 88

laid-off from inefficient state enterprises plunged into poverty, and as the reform policies concentrated on the more well-off provinces of the eastern coastal regions, Chinas central and western areas began to feel the effects. For example, the urban to rural per capita personal income ratio rose to 2.6 by 1994.21 By 2002, although overall income disparity had declined in China compared to the preceding decade, there was a rising gap between average urban and rural incomes.22 In 2004, urban residents income was 3.21 times that of rural residents; in 2005 it was 3.22, and in 2006 it was 3.48.23 As John Knight and Lina Song state, During the commune period the rural sector was expected to be self-reliant. The peasants had to take care of themselves and not be a fiscal burden to the State. The reform period retains a good deal of continuity with the past. Relatively little gross revenue flows down the rural tiers of government.24 These policies and outcomes set the course for what would come to be known across the country as a tide of migrants (mingongchao). The Floating Population and Hukou Erosion Though in the mid-eighties rural peasants had engaged in non-farm work, particularly in the TVEs mentioned earlier, as the economic reforms progressed and as the old apparatuses of state control were broken down, more and more rural residents began to leave the land.25 Chinas construction boom of the late eighties drew male migrants to the thriving eastern cities while domestic service, or baomu, became one of the most common jobs for migrant women. In 1989, three million rural women worked as baomu in urban homes.26 Because a persons hukou was increasingly less tied to food and housing subsidies in urban areas, by the early nineties more and more rural migrants began to pour into Chinas larger cities such as Beijing. Between 1985 and 89

1990 there were 35.3 million rural-to-urban migrant workers.27 By 2000 this number had increased to about 90 million.28 Currently, there are estimated to be between 120 and 150 million of this so-called floating population (liudong renkou).29 In 2007, Beijing had over 5.4 million migrant workers out of a total population of approximately 17.4 million.30 It should be noted, however, that accurate numbers of migrants are notoriously hard to obtain, both because the word migrant can have several meanings and because of the large number of the floating population who often fail to register in their new location and thus are difficult to track in surveys and census counts. 31 Though rural migrants have substantially contributed to Chinas economic development, this does not mean that they have been welcomed and easily integrated into urban areas. In Chinas cities, migrants upset many of the taken-for-granted social and cultural assumptions that have characterized the Peoples Republic since its founding. These include the separation of the urban and the rural not only in terms of geography, but also in perceived degree of culture as well as entitlement to coveted jobs and a range of benefits, as discussed above. Furthermore, because until recently the work unit was the only proper location for employment and containment within the socialist system, and since migrants are considered temporary workers and as such not entitled to the benefits nor the mechanisms of surveillance that were once a function of work unit affiliation, their presence has engendered fear and suspicion on the part of urbanites. For these reasons, migrants are often blamed for overcrowding and crime in cities as well as taking coveted jobs in the downsized industrial sector.32 Migrants have often been characterized as uncouth and backward, disorderly (wuxu), and a group of rural escapees walking blind (mangliu) in the city.33 90

In addition to such discursive constructions of migrants, they face significant material and institutionalized constraints in Chinas cities. They are segregated into low-paying, low-status jobs and they tend to make half of what urban residents make.34 They also are forced to lead what has been called isolated lives since they work such long hours, do not have the time or money to enjoy leisure spaces, live in segregated areas, and have little meaningful social contact with urban residents.35 Migrant workers also face exploitation in the workplace, including a lack of labor contracts, forced overtime, unpaid wages, unsafe working conditions, and little or no health insurance benefits.36 These problems tend to be exacerbated in large cities like Beijing and Guangzhou.37 They are also subject to police and government mistreatment. In one of the more infamous cases of such harassment in Beijing, an entire migrant village housing thousands of migrants from the Wenzhou area of Zhejiang Province was demolished by authorities on the premise that it was illegal and undermined state authority.38 Still, due to the phenomenal growth in the number of rural peasants in Chinas cities, the government has been forced to make concessions regarding the rigid hukou system, though these policies have often lacked coherence. In the mid-nineties, in place of restrictions on temporary residence in cities, the Ministry of Labor required all migrants to have an identification card (shenfen zheng) and to obtain three certificates a temporary residence card, an employment certificate, and an employment card so that they could legally live and work in cities. These cards were supposed to cost approximately 20 yuan but a survey conducted in 1996 among migrants in four cities revealed that most were paying 10 or 12 times this much, meaning these cards had 91

become another means of exploiting migrant workers.39 For this reason, some migrants avoid obtaining these cards altogether, earning them the label of sanwu or the three withouts. In March 2003, a migrant named Sun Zhigang was stopped in Guangzhou and when he was not able to produce any of his cards, he was put in jail in accordance with legal statutes. While in detention he was beaten to death, and his case generated such a public outcry that afterwards Beijing and other cities ended forcible detentions and deportations of migrants without permits.40 Other policies have also been implemented. As mentioned earlier, in 1998 hukou rules were amended so that children could inherit either the mother or fathers hukou location. Furthermore, while migrant children had previously been banned from attending urban schools, these restrictions were also gradually relaxed, although the prohibitive fees still keep many migrant children from enrolling in urban schools.41 Instead, they attend poorly funded and substandard migrant schools, which in many cases are formally illegal and subject to periodic government closures.42 Hukou has also been commodified in different regions. For example, in 1993 hukou reforms carried out in a number of small towns and cities enabled migrants who had a stable residence and employment (of more than two years) to obtain an urban hukou.43 Further measures in 2001 eventually abolished migrant quotas in small towns and cities in order to absorb some of the estimated 160 million surplus rural workers who could not make a living by farming.44 Policies in large cites have been more restrictive, such as the blue-seal hukou, which allows certain talented meaning educated and/or wealthy people to buy an urban hukou. When Beijing introduced such a scheme in 2001, it was explicitly for those who had invested heavily in private 92

enterprises in the city.45 At the time, only one person who applied on the basis of wealth was qualified to obtain this hukou.46 Thus, particularly in large and more prestigious cities, hukou reform has mainly privileged the wealthy and educated, while the vast majority of migrant workers in low-wage, unskilled jobs remain excluded. In recent years, the government has taken a somewhat more compassionate, though still contradictory, view of migrant laborers, in recognition that Chinas economy depends on them and that the countryside cannot support the amount of rural surplus labor. Since 2003 the central government has promulgated a series of new regulations and laws that have focused on labor protection and limited social welfare benefits, such as medical insurance, for rural-to-urban migrants.47 However, these have been unequally implemented and difficult to enforce. Though as recently as 2007 there were announcements about impending major hukou reforms, the policy remains firmly entrenched, an institutionally imposed invisible Great Wall which divides rural and urban people and generates substantial differences in their levels of economic welfare.48 According to hukou scholar Wang Fei-ling, although during the Mao era and the early years of the reforms, the hukou created institutionalized exclusion based on whether one was in a rural or urban area, its current effect has been to produce exclusion based on economic haves and have-nots.49 Chinas Dagongmei Chinas economic reforms and current hukou policy have had particular consequences for Chinas female migrants. As in the Mao era, the hukou system continues to produce distinctly gendered outcomes for rural (and urban) residents, 93

which are consistent with and exacerbated by other socio-cultural factors, such as patriarchal norms that have traditionally afforded males more autonomy, mobility, and power. According to cultural geographer Cindy Fan, such traditions reduce rural womens range of options to improve their lives, and for this reason gender hierarchies are critical for understanding the decision-making process, pattern and consequences of migration.50 Perhaps it is not surprising that there are fewer female than male migrants; women comprise approximately 30 to 40 percent of the total rural-to-urban migrant population.51 The majority of these women are young (mid-teens to mid-twenties), semi-literate, unskilled, and single.52 Because most have not had previous job experience and their rural upbringing has trained them to be less willing to take risks, they tend to stay within migrant social networks and find housing with employers or in cramped rooms with relatives or other migrant women.53 Their relatively restricted mobility within the city contrasts with male migrants more unrestrained movement. While most female migrants search for jobs in their own province, 20 to 40 percent leave for large cities or the Special Economic Zones mentioned above, and women are more likely than men to engage in inter-provincial migration.54 Reasons for Migration Young rural womens reasons for migration can vary significantly, with diverse push and pull factors. In earlier research, the most common reasons given were to escape poverty or to improve the overall financial status of the family; thus, several scholars have understood migration as a household strategy, where a young womans labor in an outside town or city is designed to improve the economic standing of the 94

entire family.55 In her research, Fan found that money sent back home by female migrants was important in improving the familys livelihood.56 Others, however, have disputed the significance of remittances.57 Many rural females make the decision to leave the village on their own and some depart against their parents wishes. Due to Chinas agricultural reforms, in all but the poorest of rural households, young womens production is often considered surplus labor. Since many have dropped out or been forced to quit school (usually after attending at least one or two years of junior middle school), they often feel bored or useless at home.58 Migration thus offers a chance to see the world and to seek opportunities for development through learning new skills.59 In addition, many young rural women view working away from home as a route to unprecedented freedom and autonomy even if temporarily before settling down for marriage. In the city they can escape the restrictive patriarchal conditions of their villages, where they are subordinated in their family, and their lives are dictated by housework, farming, and, after marriage, reproduction. Migrating can also serve as a means of postponing marriage or evading an unwelcome arranged marriage.60 In addition, migrant womens employment may improve their marital options by allowing them to secure more money for a dowry.61 Some women also migrate with the intent of saving enough money to return home in the future and start their own business. In Fans study, many migrant women who had returned indicated that they would open a small business or engage in some other type of entrepreneurial work. It is hard to imagine they would have had this vision or opportunity without their migration experience.62 Fan also found that for a significant 95

number of women, their earnings from working in a city clearly helped to raise their status back home.63 In these cases, the womens autonomy did not end once they returned to the village even though upon return they still had to contend with institutional and cultural forces that constrain their potential agency. Sociologist Rachel Murphy also noted that the experience of working in a city allows some rural women to gain enough income and skills to become entrepreneurs upon returning home. However, their success is hindered by smaller social networks, limited access to resources, and gender norms that emphasize a womans role in tending to domestic concerns. Still, their urban experience gives them a certain amount of status and autonomy vis--vis their husbands and other relatives, and it often leads to their exercising forms of agency absent among non-migrant rural women.64 Types of Employment In general, jobs for rural-to-urban migrants frequently fall within the three Ds; that is, they are dirty, dangerous, and demeaning. Single female migrants have an especially circumscribed realm of employment that has been described as highly gender-specific and status-ascribed.65 As anthropologist Arianne Gaetano states, Young rural womens choices in the urban job market are limited by notions of gender-appropriate labor and by discriminatory policies that, alongside the hukou system, restrict migrants access to coveted state-sector jobs and certain occupations.66 Most women find jobs as household maids (the baomu mentioned earlier), as live-in employees in family workshops, or as unskilled industrial or low-level service workers.67 In stark contrast to the relative safety of the domestic realm, some women, either by force or by choice, end up as sex workers. Many of these gender-specific 96

occupations were non-existent or hardly existed in the Mao era, and such gender segregation of the labor market reflects traditional gender roles and stereotypes that are more deeply rooted than socialist institutions.68 In contrast to single female migrants, most married rural women are more likely to become small entrepreneurs in the city, often in partnership with their spouses. Some work on construction sites alongside their husbands, but when they do they make about 50 to 80 percent of what males make since they are less able to do heavy physical labor.69 Female migrants are said to have lower job expectations than their male counterparts and are thought to be less likely to protest unfair work conditions.70 They frequently are employed in jobs that urban women are unwilling to do, and they are also excluded from many jobs reserved for urbanites. If they do have the same job as an urban woman, they receive less pay and have less job security. They also make much less than their rural male counterparts.71 For example, many surveys have shown that women sometimes make half what male migrants make, as with the female construction workers just mentioned. Wang Feng found that the earnings of female migrants in Shanghai were 20 percent less than male migrants, even when age, education, and type of occupation were considered.72 Prejudice and Discrimination Not surprisingly, many migrant women are often the victims of exploitation, as they do monotonous, low-paying, and often arduous work. In particular, those who work as domestics or in cottage industries encounter a reduced access to social spaces, due to long hours and isolated working conditions. Compared to male migrants, female migrants are more likely to say they are scared to leave their immediate surroundings 97

because of unfamiliarity with the city or a fear of traffickers or thieves. Many female migrants are often placed in situations where employers supervise them in both the workplace and their place of residence in parent-child type relationships.73 For example, in her study of household workshops owned by Wenzhou migrants in the Zhejiangcun area of Beijing, Zhang Li observed that young female wage-earners were extremely vulnerable to exploitation. They worked long hours, received very low wages, and occupied a severely restricted social space. While living in Beijing many of them never left the Zhejiangcun area. Their exploitation, however, was concealed within what Zhang calls a reinvented family ideology due to the position of these young women in their employers households, which follow traditional, patriarchal rules of family discipline.74 Like the wage-earners in Zhejiangcun, many migrant women face additional prejudice within the migrant community. For example, women who are maids are positioned at the bottom of the social hierarchy since traditionally in China serving others is seen as undignified.75 However, as Lina Song notes, the fact that young rural women predominate in the urban housemaid labor market is also proof of their already low social position.76 Those who are poorer or less educated tend to take lower status jobs, and this combines with ethnic and regional differences to create further stratification. According to Dorothy Solinger, Henan women looked down on Anhuinese and Sichuanese women for becoming baomu (nursemaids), and Sichuanese disparaged those Henanese and Anhui people who gathered trash; Anhui scrap-pickers were generally despised by all.77 Regarding Chinas southern factories Pun Ngai states, The identification of a person according to region or ethnicity embodies a sense of 98

spatial inequality far more subtle than the rural-urban disparity. Where one is from and ones dialect foretells ones status and wealth, and thus ones bargaining power and position in the workplace hierarchy.78 As Fan notes, migrant women are widely perceived to be immoral due to the traditional notion that womens place is in the domestic realm. By leaving the home and the village, they violate social taboos about womens, particularly rural womens, proper place.79 Sensationalized media stories and even academic accounts about the sexual depravity of rural women reinforce these stereotypes.80 Those who work in hair salons or in bars as hostesses or entertainers are often presumed to be involved in sex work even when they are employed in legitimate establishments. Female migrants are also blamed for having more unwanted pregnancies and abortions.81 Because they are suspected of violating Chinas stringent family planning policies, after having children they are then labeled excess birth guerillas (chaosheng youjidui).82 For all of these reasons, it would seem that in many ways, young migrant women have escaped one form of oppression the rural patriarchal village for another. According to sociologist Tan Shen, migrant women initially experience tremendous psychological pressures, and their feelings of being adrift and missing home are intense.83 Most continue to be in close contact with their home village while they are away. In addition to filial and familial obligations, the feeling of always being an outsider in the city is thus a significant reason the majority of migrants eventually return home.84 Despite such obstacles, several studies conducted during the nineties found that more female than male migrant workers were likely to indicate that they were satisfied with their experience, especially because the city afforded them a certain degree of 99

autonomy and the opportunity to improve their economic status.85 In her study of migrants in Chengdu, Louise Beynon found that more important than the womens wages or changes in their actual autonomy was the perception of autonomy and independence. This was achieved through their chance to make a space of their own in the city and in so doing escape rural drudgery.86 Gaetano also asserts the importance of the symbolic value of migrating, but as secondary to the actual agency migrant women are able to exercise through their migration experience. Still, for many, their raised expectations regarding what their life would be like in the city compared to the reality they often face means that they are also eventually very disillusioned.87 Female Migrants and Suzhi Certainly for many women the allure of migration stems from Chinas discourses of urban cosmopolitanism and modernity. Chinas current project of modernization privileges the city, positioning it as the origin and source of a revitalized and proud Chinese economy, culture, and nation, and by extension, the desired location, or rather the only location for constructing a modern identity. The countryside, by contrast, is framed as an economic and spiritual wasteland, where remnants of feudal tradition and conservative and outmoded peasant values operate to lock people in perpetual stagnation. In Yan Hairongs words, embedded in the post-Mao culture of modernity is an epistemic violence against the countryside that spectralizes the rural in both material and symbolic practices.88 The social construction of the countryside as inherently wanting ignores both Maoist and reform era policies that have created this social fact. Nonetheless, the chance to broaden ones horizons through exposure to an urban,

100

globalized environment is a performance of modernity not available to those in Chinas small villages and townships. Constitutive of this spectralization of the rural is the notion of suzhi, or quality, that has become predominant in China in official as well as popular discourse in the past couple of decades. The English translation of quality does not really completely convey the Chinese meaning, which encompasses quality as a whole, as well as qualities, in particular ones bodily, moral, and educational suzhi.89 The suzhi discourse first gained widespread prominence in China through propaganda campaigns designed to promote the one-child policy initiated in 1979. In these campaigns, limiting the number of Chinas people was configured as a way to improve the quality of Chinas population as a whole.90 Similarly, when China embarked on educational reforms in the late eighties, education for quality (suzhi jiaoyu) was promoted to counter the emphasis in education on teaching to the college entrance exams and to stress education for the purpose of improving the quality of the people.91 Cultivating suzhi can take many forms, including mental as well as physical exercise. It generally entails developing skills, manners, self-discipline, and refinement, and this can be accomplished especially through work discipline and through education of all kinds, including learning a foreign language and gaining technical skills. In current usage, suzhi implies qualities that are internalized at a deep level and that are based on ones upbringing. In order to avoid its eugenics connotations, however, emphasis is placed on possibilities for improving suzhi. According to anthropologist Andrew Kipnis, in contemporary China suzhi has taken on sacred overtones. It now

101

marks the hierarchal and moral distinction between the high and the low and its improvement is a mission of national importance.92 All Chinese citizens are meant to be interpellated into the suzhi discourse, yet because understandings of suzhi produce distinct rankings of groups of people, both those in the countryside and migrants in the city are especially subject to critiques of their suzhi. Because ones internal suzhi is supposed to be manifest in ones outward appearance and behaviors, migrants lack of education and their supposed poor upbringing a result of substandard educational facilities and poverty are mapped onto their rustic appearance, especially newly arrived migrants. In other words, urbanites link the specificity of the migrants dress with her overall physical/mental/moral Quality.93 Perhaps unsurprisingly the media in China are frequently quite open about the perceived backwardness of Chinas countryside and in particular deride the low quality of rural women.94 Certainly migrant women are aware of these discourses, and for them the city is the only place where they can improve their suzhi through gaining some skills and becoming modern. Compared to men, more female migrants place a high value on city life and more of them migrate to cities as opposed to townships or other villages.95 Thus, as mentioned above, for many, more significant than the economic rewards or improvement in social status is the symbolic importance of migrating.96 It is not surprising, then, that the longer female migrants are away from home, the greater propensity they have, compared to males, to gradually spend more of their salary on clothes and make-up rather than sending it home.97

102

In fact, the so-called second generation migrant workers, both male and female, are more likely than the generation before them to embrace city life and to strive to improve their suzhi. Unlike their parents, for the most part they have more education, have never known extreme hunger, and quite often have never engaged in farm work and are therefore less willing to do hard physical labor.98 In the city, these migrants, all born after 1980, tend to compare themselves and their standard of living to their urban peers rather than their counterparts back home in their villages.99 They are more likely to enroll in education and training courses in the city and they do not necessarily send remittances home. They are also are more inclined to participate in Chinas burgeoning consumer culture and to spend most of their salaries on consumer goods like clothing and mobile phones.100 Chinas Consumer Revolution When the Chinese government embarked on its economic reforms in the late seventies, obviously one of the key aims was raising the standard of living for Chinas citizens. As part of the modernization drive, Deng Xiaoping set a goal that ordinary people would be able to achieve a xiaokang or a relatively comfortable life by the end of the century.101 Indeed, between 1978 and 1990, per capita income doubled (after adjusting for inflation),102 and it has continued to grow at an average annual rate of eight percent.103 Such processes have had a profound impact on how Chinese citizens from all backgrounds live their everyday lives. Compared to the Mao era, peoples expectations in terms of their material well being and the way they define themselves in relation to others have also been transformed. 103

As anthropologist Yan Yunxiang notes, under Mao consumption in China was characterized by few choices and similar patterns among nearly the entire population; it also lingered at a basic subsistence level for thirty years.104 Socialist asceticism was enforced through exhortations for hard work and plain living and through attacks on any pursuit of material comforts or luxury as evidence of corrupt bourgeois culture.105 In contrast, the Deng era reformers sought to repudiate this mode of thinking and did so not only through policy reforms but also through ideological work that encouraged citizens to make money as well as spend it. As mentioned earlier, the countryside first benefited from these reversals, and in the early years of the reforms rural residents were quick to build new houses, buy new machinery, and enjoy better food. Urban consumers quickly followed suit starting in the mid-eighties and soon magazines and newspapers, including the Peoples Daily the mouthpiece of the Communist Party featured stories on modern citizens enjoying similarly modern lifestyles with major appliances and other creature comforts.106 Chinas booming economy and spending on domestic consumption were temporarily slowed as a result of the government crackdown on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. However, after Deng Xiaopings Southern Tour in 1992 in which he promoted further marketization of the economy and socialism with Chinese characteristics economic development, consumer spending, and making money as a central goal became prominent features of Chinese society. Dengs tour and the escalated economic reforms that followed were as much about economic as political pragmatism. As many have observed, since 1992 consumerism has become the

104

dominant ideology in Chinese society and one of the means available to the Communist Party to maintain its legitimacy.107 This decades-long consumer revolution in China has had several consequences, especially since the mid-nineties. After the Third Plenum of the Fourteenth Party Congress in 1993, the regional disparities discussed earlier were exacerbated, and urban inequality also grew as the iron rice bowl for workers was smashed and massive lay-offs and unemployment ensued.108 As work units began focusing on productivity and efficiency, they in turn reduced many of the social welfare benefits formerly guaranteed to their employees. When the responsibilities and resources of the work unit shifted, the work unit also became less and less associated with state-controlled consumption.109 Furthermore, according to sociologist Deborah Davis, as individuals went about their daily routines they could ignore the importuning of state agents in ways that were unthinkable during the first three decades of CCP rule, even though constraints remained in several areas, such as reproduction through the one-child policy.110 This separation of urban production and consumption particularly as housing, food, and other resources were increasingly commodified meant greater autonomy not only for urban residents, but also for rural peasants, who were able to enter towns and cities to engage in business and labor, as mentioned earlier. The decreased importance of the work unit in urban residents lives and the gradual erosion of the power of the hukou system occurred simultaneously with the creation and marketization of new forms of leisure and entertainment. With more money and autonomy, urban residents also desired more modern ways to spend their free time. Prior to the nineties, aside from outdoor parks there were very few public 105

areas for socializing. I recall that when I lived in Beijing from 1990 to 1992, getting together with Chinese friends usually occurred in someones home, where an invitation to dinner often meant spending the whole day as food was prepared, cooked, and leisurely eaten. Occasionally, there were all-day outings to city parks or places of historical interest. The opening of the first McDonalds and Pizza Hut in Beijing in 1990 generated much excitement and interest on the part of everyday Chinese because it was something new and modern.111 By the mid-nineties all kinds of western fast food outlets and chain restaurants, bowling alleys, bars, and karaoke venues had cropped up around the city. Such places were not just indicative of increased foreign investment in China. They enabled new opportunities for sociality and personal networking as well as greater individual autonomy since socializing outside the home or work unit could take place away from the purview of employers and sometimes meddlesome colleagues. 112 The flood of foreign films, music, magazines, and images further influenced everyday values and desires for new lifestyles. These new modes of consuming in turn created new modes of status differentiation, identity construction, and social polarization. When consumption was severely constrained during the Mao era, ones social status was primarily determined by ones class status, which was not based so much on material wealth but on political correctness (though clearly those who had been wealthy suffered politically). This is not to say that consumption was completely ignored and did not have status connotations, however, as revealed in definitions of the three big items (da sanjian) that delineated the most desirable consumer items in different eras. For example, in the sixties and 106

seventies, bicycles, wristwatches, and sewing machines constituted the da sanjian. In the eighties, reflecting a rising standard of living, the three big items had morphed into washing machines, color TVs, and refrigerators. By the nineties, these had changed to telephones, air conditioners, and VCRs.113 When I asked a friend in Beijing in 2006 what the three bigs were, she was at a loss for an answer, and finally replied that there were so many goods and so much wealth in China that the da sanjian had become a notion of the past. According to Yan Yunxiang, The most obvious change that consumerism has wrought on Chinese society is its subversion of the existing socialist hierarchy. Consumerism enables some people to redefine their social status in terms of consumption and lifestyle.114 Indeed, identity construction and social status through consumption are perhaps the most striking visual differences in the realm of peoples everyday lives that have taken place since the eighties in the PRC. This first began in the early eighties with the getihu, or individual household business men and women, who although usually poorly educated and not very well off, early on were able to take advantage of market reforms and acquire a lot of money relatively quickly. Their voracious and competitive spending made them both despised and envied by nearly every strata of society.115 However, it is not just Chinas nouveau riche that construct themselves through conspicuous consumption. Starting in the mid-nineties a rising class of educated, private entrepreneurs emerged, as did a group of young professional white-collar workers. In particular, the influx into China of designer clothing boutiques and household furnishing stores such as Ikea are meant to cater to this latter group, who define 107

themselves through following local and global trends in clothing fashions, personal style, and consumer electronics. In a nation where the exchange of political rights for material comforts has been solidified as state policy, consumer citizenship the expression of agency and identity through consumption practices116 has become for many the primary means of expressing their place and worth in the Chinese nation.117 From a Society of Relative Comfort to a Harmonious Society Chinas embrace of a neo-liberal development model that identified personal consumption as a primary driver of economic growth and individual consumer choice as a spur to further efficiency and innovation has meant that not everyone enjoys this form of citizenship on equal terms.118 As indicated by the urban to rural income disparities cited earlier, many of Chinas citizens rural residents, rural-to-urban migrants, and laid-off urban workers are increasingly constrained or left out altogether from participating in the modes of consumption that have come to define belonging, success, and ones quality in contemporary China. Unfortunately, these disparities are by no means accidental. When Deng Xiaoping set forth the goal of enabling ordinary people to achieve a relatively comfortable life, he was explicitly referencing a classical-era text The Record of Rites (Liji). As Lu Hanlong notes, This society of relative comfort, where people pursued private interests and gave priority to advancing family interests, was considered morally inferior to the society of great equality that had preceded it.119 For Deng and the other reformers it was therefore seen as a middle ground, on the way towards equality for all, and it was acknowledged that inequality would occur some must get rich first and 108

then others will follow and state-imposed laws would be necessary to regulate peoples actions.120 When in fact many did get rich but many others did not follow, the government was forced to change course. In 2004, following a Xinhua news editorial describing China at a pivot point that will lead either to a golden age of development, or a contradictions-stricken age of chaos, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao put forth a vision of constructing a harmonious society.121 Since then greater efforts have been made to close the urban-rural divide, in particular by enacting policies to ease the economic burden on Chinas peasants such as lifting a centuries-old agricultural tax and eliminating tuition fees for rural schools and to raise their incomes in order to spur domestic consumption in rural areas. The Construction/Consumption of Femininity in the Post-Mao Era Chinas consumer revolution has not only brought new forms of distinction and discrimination based on social class or spatial separation; rather, in line with Chinas market reforms as a whole, it has had profound implications for men and womens status and for hegemonic notions of gender. As many feminist scholars in and outside of China were quick to note at the earliest stages of the reforms, womens position in society and the discursive construction of gender quickly seemed to take two steps forward, one step back.122 Starting in the early eighties due to downsizing of unprofitable state owned enterprises, many middle-aged urban women were the first to be laid off, forced into early retirement (xiagang), or urged to return home in order to leave jobs for men.123 The discarding of old female workers along with the stagnant, centrally-planned economy has been paralleled by the rise of an urban-based service 109

economy. As mentioned earlier, as a result there has arisen a range of entirely new occupations that are segregated based on gender distinctions, and these have had profound implications for both urban and rural women. As Zhang Zhen notes, in postsocialist China, the rusted iron rice bowl has been replaced by the rice bowl of youth (qingchunfan), a term referring to the trend in urban areas in which: a range of new, highly paid positions have opened almost exclusively to young women, as bilingual secretaries, public relations girls, and fashion models. Youth and beauty are foremost, if not the only, prerequisites to obtaining lucrative positions, in which the new professionals often function as advertising fixtures with sex appeal. The robust image of vivacious, young female eaters of the rice bowl of youth symbolizes a fresh labor force, a model of social mobility, and the rise of a consumer culture endorsed by current official ideologythe democracy of consumption promoted to prevent social unrest since the suppression of student movements in 1989.124 This rice bowl of youth has emerged in tandem with the relatively new urban spaces for commodity consumption mentioned earlier.125 In high-end restaurants, bars, and clubs, and in shopping malls filled with designer boutiques, young women trade their looks for material comfort. Female university graduates as well are expected not only to have brains but also beauty and they are at a disadvantage when competing with their male counterparts, since they are often expected to have higher skills and to meet certain height and weight standards.126 In numerous service agencies that have emerged in the reform era, such as real estate, young, educated, attractive urban women have become along with the establishments in which they are employed signifiers of Chinese cosmopolitan modernity. In post-socialist Chinas teleology, they represent progress and the future, in contrast to the anachronistic, worn-out laid-off middleaged female workers. The paradox is that just as Chinas quest for modernization has 110

opened up new possibilities for women, their circumscribed place is justified in the name of modernity. While such consumption and commodification of female bodies in the workplace represents a mode of sexual politics far removed from the Mao era, it has ties with both Chinas semi-colonial past and with what L.H.M. Ling has termed contemporary global hypermasculinity, or the way in which the states manly pursuit of economic development renders its citizens as hyperfeminized: subordinate and self-sacrificing yet lacking a political voice.127 Of course, it is not only young urban women that are commodified in contemporary China but migrant womens bodies as well. Ling adds that as the exemplars of hyperfeminized society, women become the hypermasculine states most obvious target. East Asias economic growth was built on the backs of lowwage, unskilled, young female labor.128 Similarly, Cindy Fan notes that in China, Increased consumerism, pent-up demand for urban services and urban development have increased job opportunities for peasant migrants.129 Thus, as mentioned earlier, young migrant women are funneled into gender-specific occupations, such as domestic work, service work, or sex work, where their labor is desired and consumed precisely because it is feminized and sexualized. While currently nearly 38 percent of urban women are engaged in so-called female jobs, nearly 56 percent of female migrants are employed in the lower strata of such jobs that entail long hours and minimal pay.130 Not surprisingly, the rise of a gender-segregated labor market to fill the consumer demands of a primarily urban populace has arisen hand-in-hand with extremely essentialized notions of gender in popular and official discourse in contemporary China. Such gender construction is at radical odds with its Maoist precursor, and intentionally 111

so. Like so many arenas in China that have undergone substantial reorganizing since 1978, current gender ideologies have evolved through the invocation of deeply engrained patriarchal cultural values that place women in subordinate positions to men and a simultaneous concerted effort by the Chinese state and many of its citizenry to reject and bury its Maoist past. Mao famously declared that women hold up half the sky, and during the Mao era womens participation in the labor force was assumed to ensure their emancipation. Though there is still debate about to what degree Chinese women were truly liberated under Mao and to what extent their liberation was postponed, most agree that womens equality hinged on their adherence to male norms.131 Such state-regulated gender equality was extremely visible during the Cultural Revolution, when large numbers of women participated in the public realms of not only labor but also politics. As molding the collective and expunging individuality became paramount, class struggle was preeminent and this meant gender was a non-issue. As a result, femininity or any assertion of a feminine identity was virtually eliminated, and there arose what anthropologist Mayfair Yang has called an erasure of gender and sexuality (xingbie mosha) in public space.132 This gender erasure was manifested in androgynous styles for women, including baggy clothing, cropped or braided hair, and cosmetic-free faces.133 In public, women maintained a body comportment, speaking style, and mannerisms that adhered to dominant masculine standards. Also, showing interest in love or sex was treated either as the shameful expression of a warped mind or as evidence of bourgeois individualism and detrimental to collective welfare.134

112

Perhaps the most iconic image of women from this time is that of the fabled Iron Girls, a group of young female workers from the model Dazhai agricultural brigade who were industrious, brave, technically skilled, and who symbolized the boundless energy and unswerving enthusiasm necessary to build socialist China.135 They represented the Maoist slogan that The times have changed, whatever a man can do, a woman can do too. These women earned their model status through their claim not only to carry forward the revolution but also through working as hard or harder than men.136 As Marilyn Young so astutely points out in her discussion of the Iron Girls, Chinese Marxists, just like many western liberals, embraced a notion of universal humanity where the universal human is malea class-conscious revolutionary for the one, an autonomous individual for the other, but in neither case a woman.137 In the post-Mao era, the rise of a consumer culture in China has been paralleled by heightened notions of essentialized gender, where womens natural qualities and abilities (or lack thereof) relegate them to certain segments of society and the economy.138 With the reforms of the late seventies and the lifting of state-imposed androgyny, many women were eager to assert their own identity as women, most often through donning feminine fashions, cosmetics, permed hair, and other outward manifestations of dominant modes of femininity. As a political strategy and as a method to reclaim a buried selfhood they felt had been subsumed by Maoist rhetoric, this was certainly understandable. At the same time, in public discourse of the early eighties as a way to repudiate the Mao era and in particular the Cultural Revolution, the Iron Girls were mocked as disgusting, an embarrassment, and like much of the Maoist past, out of line with human nature. A public discourse emphasizing natural gender distinctions 113

based on biological traits thus became prominent, with women constructed as having special charms, grace, and gentleness.139 Since then, discursive constructions of essentialized gender can be found in both popular and official discourse in everything from tracts on youth sex and dating to medical advice.140 However, the most noticeable forms of these essentialized gender distinctions mirroring the high visibility of the Iron Girls in state propaganda of the mid-1960s are found in the mediated images of women in the advertisements, beauty magazines, and television shows and films that have proliferated as a result of Chinas consumer revolution. As Elisabeth Croll noted of early 1980s China, On the billboards the posters of the model worker have been replaced by new posters portraying women as consumers in the company of washing machines, cooking pots, watches, televisions and toothpaste or cosmetics.141 However, since the late eighties and especially the nineties, the representation of Chinese women has transformed from that of cute, coy, or delicate, to increasingly provocative and highly sexualized. In advertisements young maternal figures might still accompany washing machines, but their seductive and scantily clad counterparts are just as likely to be found cradling a bottle of Johnny Walker or a Motorola mobile phone. Of course, these images are both highly alluring and vastly out of reach for many women. Still, they serve a pedagogical role about the meaning of gender in contemporary China. In Harriet Evans words, they are important indicators of the ways in which state and market, often indistinguishable in the way they operate, make use ofand excludewomens bodies for commercial and political purposes. Together, they are the most obvious and omnipresent form of the commercialization of 114

womens bodies.142 Currently, the mediated images of Chinese women are linked to global images of female sexuality, and at the same time the image of the beautiful Chinese woman also clearly invokes the global consumerism within which the Chinese market is situated.143 Furthermore, in China the commodification of womens bodies in both the workplace and the realm of representations is indicative of local and global intersections and understandings of gender and labor. Just as the labor force presents limited options for certain women, mainstream constructions of gender collapse the possibilities of femininity and femaleness into a composite image that is urban, educated, content, materially successful and beautiful.144 Thus, certain notions of what it means to be a modern woman in China today erase others, and certain women, especially female rural-to urban-migrants, are erased from constructions of ideal femininity. In this regard, womens bodies become both object to be consumed and project to be improved. As will be further explored in chapter three, consumer practices and associated notions of essentialized gender and increasingly those associated with the consumption of technology thus become a crucial means for migrant women to claim a modern, female identity. Telecommunications Development in the Reform Era Chinas shift toward a consumer society has paralleled and been constitutive of the staggering growth in telecommunications that has taken place during the reform era. Maoist modernity with its unswerving faith in a teleological drive towards a communist utopia recognized the importance of technological development. Although 115

Mao Zedong has periodically been characterized as anti-technology, Mao stated in 1958, We must summon our effort to learn technology so as to accomplish the great technological revolution history has left to us.145 For Mao, however, technology was most associated with industrialization that would be achieved through mass mobilization of the productive forces. For this reason, in the First Five-Year Plan of the Peoples Republic, posts and telecommunications were given a back seat to heavy industry, and such priorities set a precedent for relatively little investment and sluggish development of the nations post service and telecommunications sector.146 During the Mao era, the state-owned telecommunications system was highly centralized and quasimilitary, and almost no ordinary citizens had a telephone .147 Instead, the communication needs of the elite, especially the party apparatus, were given top priority and ensured by a system of private networks, courier services, red telephones, and preferential connection.148 In 1950, Chinas teledensity (the number of telephones per 100 persons) was .05; 149 by 1975 it was only .33 (a rate achieved in the U.S. by the late 19th century).150 Beginnings When Deng Xiaoping came to power in the late seventies, Chinas telecommunications sector had several problems, including outdated technology, poor management, and inadequate capital investment.151 However, Deng and his fellow reformers were well aware that investment in telecommunications and transportation were crucial to economic growth and raising peoples standard of living. Thus, in the Sixth Five-Year Plan for 1981-1985, the development of Chinas telecommunications industry was given top priority.152 From the eighties to the early nineties, the expansion 116

of telecommunications was extraordinary due to overall economic growth, increasing demand, and the central governments support. From 1985 to 1990, telecommunications services grew at an annual rate double that of Chinas soaring gross domestic product, which averaged 10 to 12 percent annually.153 From 1990 to the beginning of 1993, the growth rate was four times that of GDP.154 In 1980, there were 4.1 million fixed-line telephones in China, for a teledensity of .4.155 By 1990, there were 12.73 million fixedline phones in the nation, and the teledensity had risen to approximately 1.2 percent.156 Despite the governments goal that ordinary citizens would be able to enjoy telecommunications, during the eighties telephones continued to be configured as a device for the elite. Although installation rates previously had been very low, in 1980 Chinas Posts and Telecommunications Bureaus began to charge 2,000 yuan (today about $260) per installation (an exorbitant amount), and by the end of the decade this fee had increased to 6000 yuan and in some places was even as much 20,000. Despite the outrageous cost, many people were willing to pay and to wait up to two years to get a phone installed in their home.157 Of course, millions could not afford such fees, and when I lived in Beijing in the early nineties it was not uncommon for two or even three families to share the same line. Furthermore, like much of Chinas development, urban households were favored over rural households in the growth of telephony. In 1990, the urban to rural ratio of fixed-line phones in homes was 3.7:1, and only .29 percent of the total rural population had landlines in their homes.158 Eastern coastal regions and Special Economic Zones also prevailed: in 1992 the seven most developed eastern cities and SEZs comprised 51 percent of the fixed-line telephones in the nation while the

117

seven poorest and least developed provinces (all inland) accounted for just five percent.159 Cell phone use in China at this time was even more limited and stratified. The nations first analog mobile phone service was established in Guangzhou in 1987, but the growth in mobile phone subscriptions in China, as in much of the rest of the world at this time, was quite slow. By 1992, China had 176,943 mobile phone subscriptions out of a population of 1.17 billion.160 This small number was due to lack of infrastructure and astronomical fees. In the early and mid-nineties, a cell phone and a registration could cost as much as $4,000, which has been estimated to be the highest in the world at that time relative to per capita income.161 Market Socialism and the Telecommunications Revolution As with Chinas development in general, the expansion of telecommunications, and the real diffusion of mobile phones, escalated after Deng Xiaopings Southern Tour and the governments subsequent all-out embrace of the socialist market economy. As mentioned earlier, starting from the mid-nineties China sought to more rapidly transition from a centrally-planned to a market-oriented economy and from an agrarian to an industrialized, urban society. As Mueller and Tan note in their discussion of Chinas telecommunications growth, the diffusion of information technology throughout the country cannot be understood in isolation from Chinas industrialization. Both processes are in turn closely related to the penetration of the Chinese economy by market forces.162 While the years prior to 1992 are often characterized as the first stage of Chinas telecommunications development in the reform era, the period after 1992 is 118

distinguished by three subsequent stages that have each greatly contributed to the integration of telephony into peoples everyday lives. In the second stage, the government took the first steps toward deregulation, when the monopoly of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (MPT) was challenged by the establishment in 1994 of China Unicom, a joint venture of three different government ministries and 13 large state-owned companies.163 China Unicom came into being after a protracted battle between various ministries and bureaucrats and, as Mueller and Tan so astutely point out, only when the economic concerns of the coalition that challenged the MPT: were successfully linked to the partys ideological and policy commitment to high-tech industries. The Chinese leadership has always based its enthusiasm for the information superhighway on a technocratic view of electronics as the key to global economic and political power and information technology as the solution to institutional problems of reform.164 When China Unicom formed, the State Council asked the MPT to restructure its organization and to become a regulator that would guard the interests of the state and the public. A separate branch of the MPT then created China Telecom as a means of competing with China Unicom. However, under a bizarre and unfair regulatory framework, China Telecoms finances and planning were managed by the MPT, which then enjoyed twin status as both an operator and a regulator. Of course, China Unicom could not adequately compete with China Telecom or the MPT, which created many obstacles to China Unicoms development. Nonetheless, China Unicom had the support of the central government, and its creation contributed to a viable telecommunications market, especially in mobile telephony, as will be discussed below.

119

The third stage of Chinas telecommunications development began in March 1998 when the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) was created through the merger of the MPT and two other ministries, in preparation for joining the World Trade Organization. With this institutional reorganization, for the first time in PRC history regulation and operation functions were separated from one another.165 One of the first actions of the newly formed MII was to lower service fees. For example, international calls and Internet service fees were reduced by 15-30 percent and 50 percent, respectively.166 The MII also drastically reformed the telecommunications industry. The virtual monopoly that China Telecom had held on the telecommunications sector ended in February 1999 when China Telecom was divided into four companies. As a result, the original China Telecom became a fixed-line provider, China Mobile was created for mobile communications, Guoxing handled wireless paging, and China Satellite was established for satellite communications.167 China Unicom focused on cellular telephony, receiving all of China Mobiles CDMA operations and networks. In March 1999, China Unicom merged with Guoxing.168 The fourth stage of Chinas telecommunications development began in 2001, after China joined the WTO.169 This stage has seen further liberalization of Chinas telecommunications market, a reduction in fees for various types of calling and services, and an increase in value-added services.170 China currently has two main fixed-line providers, China Netcom and China Satellite, and two main mobile phone providers, China Mobile and China Unicom, though there has been much talk of a pending government restructuring of the telecommunications industry.

120

As a result of all of these changes and many peoples rising standard of living, throughout the nineties and into the new millennium Chinas fixed-line telephony continued to grow at an amazing rate. By 1998 Chinas teledensity had reached 10.64 percent, reflecting growth rates in previous years that sometimes had surpassed 50 percent.171 By the early 2000s most people in urban areas had private phones in their homes.172 By 2007 China had roughly 365 million fixed-line telephone subscribers, with a teledensity of 27.8.173 Though urban areas had more than double the number of fixed-line phones in the countryside, rural areas have also seen tremendous growth during this period. Such growth was particularly evident after 1996 when the government implemented the Village-to-Village Telephone (Cuncuntong Dianhua) project to try to bring universal service to rural areas. The result was an annual growth rate of telephone subscriptions in rural areas of over 30 percent, surpassing the rate of urban areas.174 This program was amended in 2004 in order for the most remote villages to have at least two telephones, one in the village committee office and one in a public call bar.175 Though in China the growth of fixed-line phones has been tremendous, over the last decade the expansion of mobile telephony has been astounding. The Mobile Revolution The growth of mobile telephony in China must be seen within the context of Chinas particular economic and telecommunications policies. It should also be understood in the larger context of the worldwide growth in mobile telephony there are currently 3.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions in the world, about half of the earths population.176 Particularly in developing countries, the phenomenal expansion of 121

cell phones appears to reflect these countries leap-frogging from minimal fixed-line teledensity to large-scale cellular phone penetration.177 As mentioned above, prior to the Chinese governments protracted efforts at restructuring the telecommunications industry, cell phone usage in China was very limited. After China Unicom was created in 1994, however, mobile phone subscriptions began to grow exponentially. In 1993 there were 632, 268 cell phone subscriptions; in 1994 this more than doubled to 1,567,780; in 1995 the number grew to 3,629, 416; and in 1996 there were 6,852,752.178 By August of 1998 China had 20 million mobile phone subscribers, the largest number in the world.179 In the nineties, mobile phones were largely communication devices for Chinas government elite and rising entrepreneurial class. Throughout the mid-nineties cell phones cost around $3,000, and as mentioned earlier, service was concentrated in Chinas wealthier coastal provinces in line with Chinas development strategy. In fact, throughout much of the nineties pagers (bipiji), not cell phones, were the most prominent form of mobile communication technology for everyday citizens. Pagers were introduced into China in the early eighties but were used only in a limited number of cities and by a relatively small number of subscribers until the late eighties. However, the technology finally took off in 1991 when paging services with Chinese characters became available.180 In 1994, approximately 2000 cities had pager stations and there were more than 10 million subscribers.181 When I lived in Beijing that year it seemed that bipiji where everywhere, and people had devised very systematic and creative methods for sending messages in Chinese. The number of pager subscribers

122

peaked in 2000, with 50 million, but by the beginning of 2005 had declined to only 3.6 million.182 The reason that pager subscriptions started to taper off during the 2000s was due to the increasing availability and decreased costs of mobile phones. In 2000, China had 85.3 million mobile phones (called dage, or big brother at the time); by 2002 the number of subscriptions had increased to 206 million; in 2004 the number was nearly 335 million; and in 2006 there were 461 million.183 As of February 2008, the number was 556.23 million, nearly 42 percent of the entire population. These numbers reflect rising demand, expansion of service, decreased user costs as a result of the telecom sector restructuring and reforms discussed above, and expansion of both the foreign and domestic mobile phone market. Such figures should also be seen in the context of the growth of Internet users in China, from 9 million in 1999, to nearly 80 million in 2003, to over 220 million currently, the largest number in the world.184 Mobile Phone Use in China Chinas wireless phone market is currently dominated by two mobile phone operators, China Mobile and China Unicom, and both of these companies provide a range of services and calling plans for their customers. China Mobile is the largest mobile phone operator in the world and the nations market leader, with roughly 68 percent of Chinas mobile phone subscriptions. China Unicom is the third largest mobile phone provider in the world and carries most of the rest of the nations mobile subscriptions, though small regional providers do exist. As Chinas mobile phone market has grown, certain distinctive (though not wholly unique) traits of mobile phone

123

use in China have emerged. These include particular pricing and service plans, the role of SMS, Little Smart, and uneven development.185 Pricing, Plans, and Prestige Most mobile phone subscribers in China use pre-paid services: as of 2005, 90 percent of all cell phone subscriptions used this form of payment,186 and pre-paid phone cards currently make up 70 percent of China Mobiles business. 187 As elsewhere, prepaid services in China are valued for their flexibility and convenience. Cards come most often in increments of 50 to 100 yuan (approximately $6.50 to $13.00), and vendors selling pre-paid cards are ubiquitous in supermarkets, outdoor newsstands, and mobile phone stores. Pre-paid cards usually also offer a variety of pricing plans, including bulkrate text messaging and voice calling where the caller pays but the receiver is not charged. Mobile phone calling plans in China, however, are not merely innocuous economic configurations based on rational market forces. Like so many other products and services that have arisen in the past decade or so, they bear distinct attributes intended to bestow status and differentiate among users. One of the most noticeable examples of this distinction derives from mobile phone numbers themselves. First, cell phone numbers reveal whether a person is a China Mobile or China Unicom subscriber, with more prestige going to the former. China Mobile is the incumbent in the mobile phone market, and as such it tends to offer better coverage and more service options in most areas. Second, ones number also reveals the type of service plan one has. For example, China Mobiles GoTone brand provides subscribers with a variety of services, including international roaming, mobile Internet, mobile banking, MMS, GPS, 124

and a mobile secretary. Beyond phone services, GoTone, as the package for highclass customers, also offers VIP clients distinguished airport service and a professional style golf club.188 On China Mobiles website, the company boasts GoTones intangible assets that are symbolized in success, self-confidence, and high taste.189 The blurb for the service even indirectly invokes the language of quality (suzhi) through comparing GoTone customers level and quality of development to its own.190 This information is not only available to subscribers or those who have perused China Mobiles promotional materials. Because it is widely known that GoTone uses the 134 through 139 prefixes, these three-digit prefixes confer status on their users.191 Regardless of provider or service plan, ones mobile phone number itself is a mark of prestige. Unlike in the U.S. where numbers are usually randomly assigned to a cell phone subscriber, in China SIM cards with mobile numbers must be purchased separately in order to use a phone. Since mobile numbers in China are rather long (11 digits), numbers that have repeating digits are more expensive because these types of numbers will be easier to remember. Numbers are also more costly based on whether they are lucky or unlucky. A phone number with a large amount of eights, for example, will be more expensive, and again confer status, since eight is an auspicious number in Chinese culture. On the other hand, a number ending in four (a homonym for death in Chinese) will be inexpensive and possibly create discomfort for a caller. Short Messaging Service SMS, or short messaging service, which is also known as text messaging, is an extremely popular form of mobile communication in China. SMS allows for text-based messages and visual images to be transmitted. Unlike in Japan, text messaging is not 125

used in China in order to preserve the sanctity of public space. Instead, one major reason for the popularity of SMS is that it is extremely cheap. One message costs .10 yuan or about 1.3 U.S. cents (compared to .40 yuan for a local voice call). As mentioned above, bundles of text messages are often offered as part of a service plan, bringing the cost down even more. In China, pre-written text messages are extremely popular, and these messages often contain jokes, riddles, holiday greetings, or erotica. They can be copied out of inexpensive books that are widely available or downloaded from the Internet and sent to a mobile phone though Internet portals such as Sina or Sohu. Sending text messages during holidays has now become obligatory in China, especially during the MidAutumn Festival in October and Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) in January or February. During holidays people often send pre-written messages in a manner similar to sending a greeting card via the regular mail. SMS is a major generator of revenue for Chinas mobile phone providers. In 2004, 217.76 billion text messages were sent, up roughly 58 percent from the previous year and generating $2.62 billion.192 In 2007, 592.1 billion text messages were sent, for an average of 1.6 billion/day and a daily revenue of 160 million yuan (roughly $21 million).193 During the Spring Festival period in 2006, 12.6 billion messages were transmitted, in 2007 the number was 15.2 billion, and it was estimated that in 2008 17 billion text message greetings were sent.194 All of the major Internet portals employ text message writers who earn about one Chinese cent each time their message is downloaded. These message writers can earn large sums of money, especially during major holidays. 126

Little Smart (Xiaolingtong) Little Smart, or xiaolingtong, is a less expensive mobile phone with limited geographic mobility that became very popular among low-income populations in the early 2000s.195 It runs off of the fixed-line telephone system of China Netcom and China Telecom and thus can only be used within the limits of a particular city. Little Smart phones have fewer functions and the service is often of poor quality, but its usage costs are about half that of regular cell phone service. For this reason it experienced phenomenal growth between 1999 and 2006, when the number of Little Smart users increased from 0.6 million to 91.1 million (it was not launched in Beijing until 2003). During this time, the growth rate of Little Smart exceeded that of regular mobile phone subscriptions. However, this rate began to fall in 2006. During my fieldwork in Beijing, very few migrant workers that I knew had Little Smart service. This reflects both the greater affordability of standard mobile phones in recent years, the substandard quality of Little Smart service, and the stigma of Little Smart as a poor mans ICT. It seems that in the future Little Smart might go the way of the pager in China. Uneven Mobile Development Though the figures on Chinas mobile phone growth are quite impressive, mobile telephony, as in the early development of its fixed-line counterpart, has mushroomed in Chinas large urban centers and along the eastern coastal regions. For example, in 2001while the eastern region of the country had a cell phone penetration rate of 19.30 per 100 people, Chinas central and western regions had rates of 7.75 and 7.20, respectively.196 By the end of 2007, the penetration rate of mobile phones in China was 41.6 percent, with the majority of these still concentrated in big urban centers.197 127

Indeed, mobile phones have now become a personal necessity for a vast majority of Chinas city residents. Cell phones seem to be everywhere, and seem to be used everywhere in Chinas cities such as Beijing. Because most Chinese do not use voicemail, people rarely let their phone go unanswered, whether they are in an important meeting, a movie theater, or a quiet restaurant. Loud mobile phone conversations on public transportation are commonplace, but these are not necessarily viewed as rude. Only slightly less ubiquitous than people holding cell phones are the mobile phone shops that line the streets of Beijings upscale shopping districts and the second-hand mobile phone markets found near migrant enclaves. Everywhere around the city billboards display highly sexualized images of Chinese women or trendy youth with a mobile as the ultimate signifier of urban cool. Radio and television shows, Internet portals, and advertising companies all vie for attention on and through individuals cell phones, and for those who dont have the money to promote their services by such legitimate means, spray painting ones mobile number on walls or sidewalks has become a new kind of guerrilla advertising. Now that cities like Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai have become relatively saturated with mobile phones, however, the number of new subscriptions in these cities is declining. This has caused Chinas mobile operators to look to rural areas, where teledensity is still only 12 percent, as a source of new growth. For example, China Mobile added roughly 68 million new subscribers in 2007 and nearly half of these were in rural areas.198 Still, Chinas countryside is vast with large disparities between more well-off areas where mobile operators are likely to set their sights first, and impoverished regions where many people do not have landlines. For this reason, mobile 128

phones are, at this moment and in particular for rural youth, largely configured as part of an urban, cosmopolitan lifestyle. Conclusion It is perhaps surprising to realize that China has now been in a post-Mao era for equally as long as the Great Helmsmans policies ruled a quarter of the worlds population. As this chapter has shown, however, this fact is surprising only until one considers the vast changes that have occurred in China since the reforms began in the late seventies. The transformations wrought by socialism with Chinese characteristics have been as profound, and for some no less traumatic, than the endless campaigns and societal and political reorganizations undertaken to mold new socialist men under Mao. Yet, amidst the designer boutiques, sports cars, and luxury housing that now dominate Chinas large cities like Beijing, rural-to-urban migrants, constrained by Chinas rigid hukou system and discriminated against due to their rural origin, continue to strive for a better life and to partake in the fruits of Chinas various revolutions. The remainder of this dissertation will examine how one particular segment of this population rural-to-urban migrant women make meaning, enrich their lives, and at times even reinforce their subordination through their engagement with mobile phones.

129

Chapter Two Endnotes 1. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 as an effort to reconsolidate power and to purge the Party of what he called bourgeois and rightist elements. It resulted in wide-scale political and social chaos, and in many cases violent struggles between various Red Guard factions. Numerous people were publicly humiliated, beaten, and/or jailed, and it is estimated that tens of thousands of people were killed. Although several sinologists demarcate the Cultural Revolution as lasting from 1966 to 1969, the post-Mao Chinese leadership marked the official end with the death of Chairman Mao and subsequent trial of the Gang of Four in 1976. This discursive construction of the ten years of chaos allowed the new leadership to establish a clean break with the chaotic past and declare itself the legitimate leaders of a new era. 2. Khan and Riskin, Inequality and Poverty, 3. 3. Gries and Rosen, Popular Protest and State Legitimation, 1. 4. Potter and Potter, Chinas Peasants, 296. 5. The baojia system is discussed in Wang, Organizing Through Division, 34-35. Unless otherwise noted, the information in the following discussion is based on Zhao, Rural-to-Urban Migration in China. A detailed account of the beginnings of the hukou system under Mao can be found in Cheng and Seldon, Origins and Consequences as well as Wang, Organizing Through Division. 6. Knight and Song, Rural-Urban Divide, 8. 7. The two major exceptions include the disastrous Great Leap Forward of 1958-1960, when Maos campaign to transform China rapidly from an agrarian to an industrialized society brought many farmers to urban centers to take jobs in factories as part of the push for industrialization. When this campaign ended in failure, these temporary workers were sent back to the countryside. It is estimated that as a result of Great Leap policies over 30 million people died of starvation, primarily in rural areas. For an account of the Great Leap in relation to hukou policy see Cheng and Seldon, Origins and Consequences. The second exception was during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, when beginning in 1968, in order to quell some of the chaos caused by zealous Red Guards, Mao sent urban youth to the countryside to learn from poor peasants. As Potter and Potter point out, rather than create greater understanding between rural and urban residents, this policy exacerbated resentment and prejudice between the two groups. See Potter and Potter, Chinas Peasants, 303. 8. Solinger, Contesting Citizenship, 9. 130

9. Potter and Potter, Chinas Peasants, 298. 10. Zhang, Spatiality and Urban Citizenship, 315. 11. Potter and Potter, Chinas Peasants, 300. 12. Cohen, Cultural and Political Inventions. 13. Ibid., 154. 14. Potter and Potter, Chinas Peasants, 304. 15. Ibid., 307-310. 16. Khan and Riskin, Inequality and Poverty, 4. 17. Li, Labor Migration and Income Distribution, 305. 18. Khan and Riskin, Inequality and Poverty, 5. 19. French, In Chinese Boomtown. 20. Khan and Riskin, Inequality and Poverty, 8. 21. Ibid., 4. 22. Khan and Riskin, Chinas Household Income and its Distribution, 358. 23. Xinhua, Backgrounder: Challenges in Chinas Rural Development. 24. Knight and Song, Rural-Urban Divide, 12-13. 25. Zhao, Rural-to-Urban Migration in China, 21-22. 26. Huang, Divided Gender, Divided Women, 95. 27. Fan, Migration and Gender, 425. 28. Tan, Leaving Home, 248. 29. Peripheral Citizens. 30. Xinhua, Beijings Population Exceeds 17.4 Million. 131

31. Most scholars of Chinas internal migration find it useful to distinguish between temporary, non-hukou migration, which is called floating (hence, the floating population), and permanent, hukou migration (qianyi). While the percentage of official migrants in China is relatively small, the movement back and forth between the countryside and cities of unofficial, temporary migrants seeking relatively shortterm or seasonal employment has grown steadily since the reforms began. See Solinger, Contesting Citizenship. 32. See, for example, Zhang, Contesting Crime, Order, and Migrant Spaces. 33. Mallee, Migration, Hukou and Resistance, 139. 34. Khan and Riskin, Chinas Household Income and its Distribution, 375. These authors also note the income disparity among the migrant population, in particular between those who are entrepreneurs and those who are laborers. 35. See, for example, Wang, Nongmingong de Banchengshihua Wenti. On the spatial separation of migrants see Zhang, Strangers in the City; See also Fan and Taubmann, Migrant Enclaves in Large Chinese Cities. 36. Liudong Baozhangbu Diaocha. 37. There have been numerous discussions about these problems both in the academic and popular press. For a recent survey, see Li, Nongmingong Liudong Guochengzhong. 38. Zhang, Strangers in the City, especially chapter 7. 39. Zhao, Rural-to-Urban Migration in China, 25. 40. Wang, Organizing Through Division, 191. It should be noted that Sun Zhigang was a college graduate, which some have surmised is the reason his case generated such outrage. 41. Congressional-Executive Committee on China, Chinas Household Registration System. 42. Wang, Organizing Through Division, 193. 43. Ibid., 187. 44. Peoples Daily, Residency Reforms to Allow Better Flow of Laborers. 45. Li, Wo Guo Chengshihua he Liudong Renkou, 180. 132

46. Wang, Organizing Through Division, 189. 47. Tan, Nushing Liudong yu Xingbie Pingdeng, 246. 48. Knight and Song, Rural-Urban Divide, 13. 49. Wang, Organizing Through Division, 26. 50. Fan, Migration and Gender , 423. 51. Fan, Ibid., 425; Tan, Leaving Home, 248. 52. Fan, Ibid., 427; Tan, Ibid., 248. 53. Song, Role of Women in Labor Migration, 85. 54. Fan, Migration and Gender, 429; Tan, Leaving Home, 248. 55. Tan, Nxing Liudong, 241. 56. Fan, Out to the City, 187. 57. Beynon, Dilemmas of the Heart, 133. 58. Ibid., 133; Gaetano, Filial Daughters, 46. 59. Tan, Leaving Home, 249. See also Beynon, Dilemmas of the Heart, 133; Gaetano, Filial Daughters, 46. 60. Gaetano, Off the Farm, 140; Jacka, Rural Women, 77; Lee, Gender and the South China Miracle, 136. 61. Beynon, Dilemmas of the Heart, 135; Zhang, Interplay of Gender, Space, and Work, 193. 62. Fan, Out to the City, 196-197. 63. Ibid. 64. Murphy, Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China, 173. 65. Huang, Divided Gender, Divided Women, 95. 133

66. Gaetano, Filial Daughters, 52. 67. Tan, Nxing Liudong, 240. 68. Fan, Migration and Gender, 435. 69. Personal interview, Beijing, April 5, 2007. 70. Song, Role of Women in Labor Migration; Tan, Nxing Liudong, 242. 71. Song, Ibid., 78; for a recent survey, see Xia, Liudong Renkou Gongzi Shouru. 72. Wang, Gendered Migration and the Migration of Genders, 237. 73. Fan, Migration and Gender, 436; Zhang, Interplay of Gender, Space, and Work, 191. 74. Zhang, Interplay of Gender, Space, and Work, 191. 75. Song, Role of Women in Labor Migration; Gaetano, Filial Daughters, 55. 76. Song, Ibid, 95. 77. Solinger, Contesting Citizenship, 202. 78. Pun, Made in China, 121. 79. Fan, Migration and Gender, 200. 80. See, for example, Sun Indoctrinization, Fetishization. 81. Tan, Leaving Home, 252. 82. Mallee, Migration, Hukou and Resistance, 139. 83. Tan, Leaving Home, 251. 84. See, for example, Beynon, Dilemmas of the Heart; Fan, Out to the City. 85. See, for example, Song, Role of Women in Labor Migration. 86. Beynon, Dilemmas of the Heart, 139. 87. Goldstein, Liang, and Goldstein, Migration, Gender, and Labor Force, 228. 134

88. Yan Spectralization of the Rural, 579. 89. Kipnis, Suzhi: A Keyword Approach, 304. 90. Ibid., 298. 91. Ibid. As Kipnis notes on p. 301, education for quality is not the same as quality education or the quality of education, which is translated as jiaoyu zhiliang. 92. Ibid., 297. 93. Ibid., 304. 94. See, for example, Lei, Rural Taste, Urban Fashions. Online forums (BBS) have also become a place for urbanites to discuss their disdain for migrants. See for example the forum for China Youth Daily (Zhongguo Qingnian Bao) (http://bbs.cyol.com). 95. Goldstein, Liang, and Goldstein, Migration, Gender, and Labor Force, 228; Song, Role of Women in Labor Migration, 85. 96. Beynon, Dilemmas of the Heart, 137-138. 97. Zhang, Interplay of Gender, Space, and Work, 193. 98. Peripheral Citizens. 99. Tan Shen, personal correspondence, Beijing, July 20, 2005. 100. Peripheral Citizens; see also Chu and Yang, Mobile Phones and New Migrant Workers; Law and Peng, Use of Mobile Phones. 101. Lu, To be Relatively Comfortable, 124. 102. Davis, A Revolution in Consumption, 1. 103. Asian Development Bank, Reducing Inequalities in China. 104. Yan, Politics of Consumerism, 163. 105. Ibid., 164. 106. Ibid., 166. 135

107. Ibid., 167. 108. Davis, A Revolution in Consumption, 17. 109. Ibid., 11. 110. Ibid. 111. I was in Beijing for both of these openings and the crowds were enormous. 112. Davis, A Revolution in Consumption, 12-13. 113. Nearly every Chinese adult can recite some form of the three big items over the decades. These examples come from Yan, Politics of Consumerism, 170. However, Lu designates microwave ovens, stereos, and air conditioners as the big three for the nineties, To be Relatively Comfortable, 136. 114. Yan, Politics of Consumerism, 179. 115. Ibid., 180-181. 116. On definitions and debates regarding consumer citizenship see Banet-Weiser, Kids Rule! chapter one; see also Canclini, Citizens and Consumers. 117. Invoking consumer citizenship is certainly not meant to minimize the nationalism expressed by many Chinese citizens when they feel that Chinas rights as a nation have been violated or when they perceive China to have lost face as a result of actions by other nations. Examples include the protests outside the American embassy in Beijing after the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, and riots all across China in 2005 after it was learned that new Japanese school textbooks glossed over war crimes committed by the Japanese military in China prior to 1949. On the NATO bombing and Chinese nationalism, see Brownell, Gender and Nationalism in China. The most recent example is the counter-protests by Chinese in and outside of China over their anger at foreign protests of the global 2008 Olympic torch relay. In each case, however, the fact that eventually the Chinese government has stepped in to quell nationalistic fervor shows the limits for Chinese in expressing their political citizenship. 118. Davis, Urban Consumer Culture, 692. 119. Lu, To be Relatively Comfortable, 125. 120. Ibid. 136

121. Marquand, Stresses Spill Over into Riots. 122. Riley, Gender Equality in China, 79. 123. See, for example, Robinson, Of Women and Washing Machines; see also Jacka, Back to the Wok. 124. Zhang, Mediating Time, 94. 125. On the rice bowl of youth and gendered and classed service work see also Hanser, The Gendered Rice Bowl. 126. See, for example, Wallis, Chinese Women in the Official Chinese Press, 102. 127. Ling, Sex Machine: Global Hypermasculinity, 280. 128. Ibid. 129. Fan, Migration and Gender, 435. 130. Tan, Nxing Liudong, 242. 131. On the postponement of womens liberation and equality, see Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution; see also Wolf, Revolution Postponed. For a critique of their position, see Anagnost, Transformations of Gender. 132. Yang, From Gender Erasure to Gender Difference, 41. 133. Hooper, Flower Vase and Housewife, 170. 134. Evans, Women and Sexuality in China, 2. 135. For a more detailed account of the Iron Girls, see Honig and Hershatter, Personal Voices, 23-26. 136. Young, Chicken Little in China, 236. 137. Ibid. 138. Evans, Past, Perfect or Imperfect; Honig and Hershatter, Personal Voices; Hooper, Flower Vase and Housewife. 139. Honig and Hershatter, Personal Voices, 25. 137

140. For a detailed examination of continuity in gendered discourses between the pre-Mao, Mao, post-Mao eras see Evans, Women and Sexuality in China. 141. Croll, Chinese Women Since Mao, 105. 142. Evans, Marketing Femininity, 221. 143. Ibid., 236. 144. Evans, Fashions and Feminine Consumption, 173. 145. Cited in Volti, Technology, Politics, and Society in China, 61. 146. Zhou, History of Telecommunications in China, 69. 147. Wan, Sector Reform, 161. 148. Zhou, History of Telecommunications in China, 69. 149. Liang and Zhang, Services, 99. 150. Zhou, History of Telecommunications in China, 73. 151. Wan, Sector Reform, 162. 152. Ibid., 75. 153. Xu and Liang, Policy and Regulations 128. 154. Mueller and Tan, China in the Information Age, 26. 155. Lee, Telecommunications and Development, 16. 156. Zhou, History of Telecommunications in China, 79. 157. Ibid., 82. 158. Harwit, Chinas Telecommunications Industry, 185. 159. Lee, Uneven Development, 115. 160. Liang and Yang, Networks, 17. 138

161. Zhou, History of Telecommunications in China, 82. 162. Mueller and Tan, China in the Information Age, 13. 163. Xu and Liang, Policy and Regulations, 129. Unless noted, the discussion of China Unicom comes from Xu and Liang, pp. 128-131. For a detailed description and analysis of the establishment of China Unicom, see Mueller and Tan China in the Information Age, chapter 3. 164. Mueller and Tan, China in the Information Age, 46. 165. Loo, Telecommunications Reforms in China, 705. 166. Ibid. 167. Wan, Sector Reform, 172. 168. Ibid., 173. 169. As this is being written, however, there are daily news articles regarding Chinas imminent restructuring of its telecommunications sector. See China Orders 6 Telecoms to Merge Their Assets. 170. Loo, Telecommunications Reforms in China, 707. 171. Liang and Zhang, Services, 99. 172. Lynch, Nature and Consequences of Chinas Unique Pattern, 182. 173. China Ministry of Information Industry, 2007 National Communications Industry Development Statistical Report (in Chinese). 174. Qiu, (Dis)connecting the Pearl River Delta, 139. 175. Li, Phone Firms Tapping into Rural Areas. 176. Murph, Mobile Phone Subscriptions Hit 3.3 Billion. 177. For a discussion of worldwide mobile phone growth broken down by region see Castells et al., Mobile Communication and Society, chapter one. 178. Lynch, Nature and Consequences of Chinas Unique Pattern, 183. 179. Liang and Yang, Networks, 17. 139

180. Qiu, (Dis)connecting the Pearl River Delta, 131-32. 181. Ibid., 133. 182. Castells et al., Mobile Communication and Society, 60. 183. China Ministry of Information Industry, http://www.mii.gov.cn. 184. Figures for 1999 and 2003 from China Internet Network Information Center, http://www.cnnic.net.cn; Current figure, MacLeod, China Vaults Past USA in Internet Users. 185. Prepaid phone cards, text messaging, and Little Smart are less expensive forms of ICTs that are heavily used by what Cartier, Castells, and Qiu have termed the information have-less, which they define as an informationaland therefore social, economic, and politicalcategory in China. The have-less include migrant workers, laid-off employees of state enterprises, and retirees. See Cartier, Castells, and Qiu, "Information Have-Less. It should be noted, however, that text messaging and pre-paid phone cards are widely used by many in China, not only the have-less. 186. Sangwan and Pau, Diffusion of Mobile Phones in China, 7. 187. http://www.chinamobile.com/en/mainland/products/review.html. 188. http://www.chinamobile.com/gotone/profile. 189. http://www.chinamobile.com/gotone/profile/intro. 190. Ibid. 191. This is perhaps somewhat akin to area codes in certain parts of the U.S., as in Los Angeles, for example, where a 310 area code, which signifies a Westside residence, carries more prestige than an 818 area code, which is used for phone numbers in the San Fernando Valley. 192. Sangwan and Pau, Diffusion of Mobile Phones in China, 9. 193. Chinese Expected to Send 17 Billion. 194. Ibid.

140

195. Unless otherwise indicated, the following discussion comes from Qiu, Accidental Accomplishment of Little Smart,). See also the discussion in Cartier, Castells, and Qiu, Information Have-Less, 17-19. 196. Li and Wang, Chinas Telecommunications Universal Service, 7. 197. China Ministry of Information Industry, 2007 National Communications Industry Development Statistical Report. 198. Nystedt, China Mobile Posts Strong 2007 Growth.

141

CHAPTER THREE: MY FIRST BIG URBAN PURCHASE: MOBILE PHONE AS METONYM FOR MODERNITY Imagine: Wireless Freedom. Samsung T9 Mobile Phone Advertisement, Beijing Subway, January 15, 2007. It wasnt until I left my village that I saw a mobile phone. We didnt have them there. My home had a landline. Ive seen those, but it wasn't until later when I left that I saw a mobile phone. Gu Xia, Beijing, November 13, 2006. You see other people using a mobile phone and you feel envious. I see it and feel like I want one now. As soon as I earn some money I want to buy a mobile phone. Zhao Yanlin, Beijing, November 27, 2006. The economic and social transformations that China has undergone in recent decades, as well as the often disparate results of these transformations, are vividly portrayed in the experience of Gu Xia and Zhao Yanlin, two women whom I first met when they were enrolled as students in a three-month computer course at the Practical Skills Training Center for Rural Women, located on the outskirts of Beijing.1 Having been recruited by Womens Federation cadres from extremely poor villages in Shanxi and Gansu Provinces, respectively, they were very grateful for the opportunity to go to the school. At the same time, experiencing life in Beijing even on the fairly isolated school campus in a remote suburb made them acutely aware of the differences between their lives at home and the lifestyle and standard of living of many Beijing residents. Like their peers at the school and nearly all of the migrant women I met in Beijing, in conversations they framed their journey to the city as a chance to gain new skills and develop myself. In contrast to Beijing, many said their home villages were not developed and were very poor. 142

As these words demonstrate, Chinas internal discourse of development development of the nation and of individuals is a powerful force in young rural womens migration decisions. In this context, development is not only associated with economic betterment and the acquisition of new knowledge, but also entry into an imagined modernity constructed as urban and in opposition to rural tradition that promises personal transformation and access to a new type of life. For rural women, to develop oneself means, among other things, gaining modern skills that enable one to earn a living doing something other than agriculture; participating in modern consumer practices such as buying cosmetics and fashionable clothes; and enjoying new forms of entertainment and communication. A mobile phone as a communication tool and a relatively new commodity, as a technological artifact and a fashion statement, and as representative of the nations technological progress encompasses all of these and more. In this chapter, I situate migrant womens understanding and usage of cell phones in the context of Chinas discourses of development and modernity. To return to James Careys metaphor of communication as transmission and ritual, one could say that as symbols of and symbols for reality, mobile phones are constitutive of a world of technological advancement, of timeless time and the space of flows, and of ultimate convenience in communication. In the same way, cell phones as ritual have become part of the symbolic order, with various socio-techno practices taking on a range of meanings for different users. In essence, I argue that a cell phone has become a central tool in young migrant womens construction of a modern, hybrid rural-urban identity. I thus join with Lisa Rofel, Joshua Goldstein, and others in maintaining that modernity 143

is best understood through attending to the way local and global forces converge to produce meaning in the everyday lives of those who are most often ignored in grand theorizations of modernity.2 As Rofel persuasively argues, If one relocates modernity by viewing it from the perspective of those marginalized or excluded from the universalizing center, then it becomes a mutable project developed in unequal crosscultural dialogues and contentions.3 To frame my discussion, I begin by highlighting some of the central tenets of modernity as well as feminist and post-colonial interventions in understandings of modernity. Because modernity is intricately connected to particular forms of power and discipline, I next discuss Michel Foucaults concept of power and bring in feminist understandings of how gender is produced by specific configurations of power. Then, based on my fieldwork I discuss the mobile phone as it is articulated to and constitutive of modernity, in other words the way the mobile phone serves as a metonym for modernity in the lives of rural-to-urban migrant women. In this discussion I focus on three areas: the cell phones association with urban cosmopolitanism and its key role in the presentation of the self; gendered uses and discourses surrounding cell phones; and modern competencies associated with mobile phone usage. Throughout this discussion I argue that the cell phone should not be read as merely a cool accoutrement of a global youth culture. Instead, migrant womens particular understandings of mobile phones result from and must be understood within the specific material conditions and discourses that produce migrant womens experience in the city.

144

Modernity and Modernities After I graduated from the middle school in our village, I wanted to go to high school. My older sister was attending the Normal University in Jilin City. Then my parents told me they didnt have the money to send me to high school because of my sisters tuition fees. I was so upset. I felt so betrayed by my mother, and I was so angry I decided to leave and never go back. I had 110 yuan [about $14] and bought a train ticket to Beijing. It was 22 hours and I had a hard seat, but since I had never traveled by train before I didnt know I had a seat and I stood the whole way. When I arrived in Beijing, I took a bus to Dongzhimen, not really even knowing where that was. I had 30 yuan left at that point. I got off the bus and walked around for a while. Everything was strange and I didnt know anyone. Eventually I walked into a restaurant and asked for a job. I told the owner I wouldnt take a job unless housing was also provided, and he agreed. The second day I was in Beijing I called home from a call bar [pay phone] to tell my parents where I was. Its hard here, but Ive learned a lot and developed myself, and Ive never regretted what I did.4 The story above, told to me by a waitress I knew named Luo Li Kun, encapsulates many of the central tenets of what has been called modernity a mode of being and thinking that embraces change, faith in the future, and a desire for self transformation as well as personal autonomy, especially vis--vis traditional institutions such as the family.5 Luo Li Kuns story also reveals the uncertainty, anxiety, and upheaval caused by such a radical break with the past, and is constitutive of the interwoven processes including industrialization, urbanization, migration, the spread of mass communication and transportation systems, and global capitalism that have created what Marshall Berman calls the maelstrom of modern life.6 To Berman, the change and flux that are so central to modernity, and the new opportunities for freedom and autonomy as well as increasing bureaucratization of everyday life, create a world best encapsulated in Karl Marxs pronouncement that all that is solid melts into air.7 145

Though few of the women I met had a story as dramatic and daring as Luo Li Kuns, like her many framed their journey to Beijing as an opportunity to leave behind a boring village life, to see the world, to gain new skills, and, in essence, to become modern.8 At the same time, most said that Beijing was an exciting but also different and often alienating place, and one where they didnt always have their bearings. In their discussions comparing home versus life in the city, they very clearly and viscerally experienced what Anthony Giddens calls the consequences of modernity discontinuities, dislocation of space and time, the disembedding of social relations from local contexts, and new modes of trust and risk that are becoming more radicalized and universalized than before.9 Modernity, then, is often conceived of on a grand scale and through forces such as globalization or bureaucratization that seem to defy measures of scope and scale. It is about the increasing disruption and fragmentation of traditional modes of social organization as well as new ways of understanding oneself and ones place in the world. Modernity is associated with freedom and alienation, hope and anxiety, and it is as much a real transformational process as it is a trope for that which is conceived of as the opposite of tradition. At the same time, the way Luo Li Kun and other migrant women experience the consequences of modernity cannot be separated from the way they are positioned due to their gender, rural origin, age, and so forth in the particular historical and socio-cultural context of contemporary China. Modernity and Difference While theorists such as Berman and Giddens are extremely insightful and have been highly influential in understandings of what constitutes modernity, both seem to 146

assume a singular, universal experience of modernity. Berman asserts (somewhat questionably) that forces of modernity cut across all boundaries of geography and ethnicity, of class and nationality, of religion and ideology.10 Yet, as feminist scholar Rita Felski notes, to Berman the gender of modernity is clearly male, and all the exemplary heroes of his text Faust, Marx, Baudelaire are of course symbols not just of modernity, but also of masculinity, historical markers of the emergence of new forms of bourgeois and working-class subjectivity.11 Felski and others argue that the prevailing discourse of modernity has been predicated on and upholds the dominant masculine values of rationality, competition, progress, and individualism while negating the supposedly feminine values of feeling, cooperation, and continuity, all seen as traditional and thus the opposite of modern.12 Feminist anthropologist Dorothy Hodgson adds: The oppositional categories of modernity simultaneously valorize and stigmatize certain gender configurations, certain masculinities and femininities. Modernity, therefore, is not just about men and women, but about gender, the cultural, social, political, and economic relations of power between and among men and women.13 Certainly in China as elsewhere, the processes and formations associated with modernity including economic reform and rural-to-urban migration are gendered. Throughout the 20th century and continuing to the present, intellectual debates in China regarding modernity, progress, and national identity have often been intricately linked to gender, in particular to Chinese woman, as with the Iron Girls mentioned in the previous chapter. In art and cinema as well, the representation of woman has frequently served as a stand-in for the condition of the Chinese nation.14 At present, 147

conceptions of modernity both reconfigure and reinstantiate dominant notions of gender, just as they offer both new modes of freedom and new mechanisms of control. Thus, not only is modernity gendered, but it also constructs particular notions of gender. As a result, it has distinct implications for men and women because of their different positions in gendered power relations. Because the experience of modernity is not only gendered, but is also about race, nationality, and so forth, as well as the intersection of local and global forces, many feminist scholars and those examining processes of development and change in nonwestern contexts prefer to use the term other or alternative modernities.15 A notion of other modernities challenges a singular version of modernity and forces recognition that people located across geographical, cultural, and social hierarchies will experience modernity differently. It also draws attention to the way that the teleology of modernity has aligned with Enlightenment discourses of progress and rationality that have served to justify colonialism, imperialism, and the othering of non-western cultures and people.16 Furthermore, other/alternative modernities emphasizes how notions of the modern are fluid and shift in relation to particular historical conjunctures and competing discourses that should not be viewed as merely reactions to western Modernity.17 In China, as discussed in the previous chapter, modernity and modernization have been especially powerful and malleable terms used since the early 20th century by intellectuals, government officials, and the common people (laobaixing) to understand Chinas position in the world and to envision and build a strong Chinese nation able to cast off the suffering and humiliation brought about by Western and 148

Japanese powers. As Lisa Rofel notes in her masterful ethnography of three generations of Chinese female factory workers, what gets called modernity in China is neither a purely localized matter nor a mere instantiation of a universal discourse.18 Rather, modernity exists as a repeatedly deferred enactment marked by discrepant desires that continually replace one another.19 Modernity, therefore, does not only designate certain processes or a particular era. It is also a very compelling trope for a socially constructed way of being and an imagined future. Clearly, Maoist modernity, which stressed national self-reliance and entailed a quest to mold the collective and build a socialist utopia, meant something quite different from current notions of Chinese modernity. However, they both share a faith in the future, an emphasis on technological progress, and the concerted effort of the state to produce subjects that can most effectively strengthen the Chinese nation. As elaborated in the previous chapter, contemporary Chinese modernity is concerned with building a harmonious society, guaranteeing people a comfortable life achieved through wealth and consumer goods, and raising national and individual quality. At the same time, certain peoples access to this modernity is severely constrained. Within discourses of modernity, migrant women are viewed as lacking skills, quality, knowledge in a manner similar to how colonial discourses positioned non-western peoples. Hence, a young rural womens understanding of modernity and her engagement with technology in her project of becoming modern will differ from an urban womans as well as both rural and urban mens experiences of these processes. For this reason, several scholars insist that modernity is best comprehended through examining the daily lived experiences the seemingly mundane or quotidian 149

of ordinary people in specific locales. As Joshua Goldstein states, Modernity is staged in the space of the everyday, in its myriad particular contexts, and modernity in many ways reproduces and reshapes the way everyday life is lived.20 Hodgson thus uses the term the production of modernities to recognize the various forms modernity takes as well as the centrality of peoples agency in creatively and actively engaging these processes to produce new and distinct ways of being modern, within shifting structural (such as historical, political, economic, and social) constraints and opportunities.21 Examining the everydayness of the production of modernity entails attending to its multiplicity and to how modern identity is shaped through multiple discourses, knowledges, practices, and power relations. It thus necessitates an understanding of modern power. Foucault, Modern Power, and Gender Michel Foucault has written extensively on how modern institutions and forms of governance produce new modes of power, discipline, and subjectivity. Key to his analysis is a conception of power not as sovereign, institutional, or economic (although he does not deny these) but as the multiplicity of force relations that are unequal, unstable, and circulating all around us, everywhere, in a web-like fashion.22 Since power inheres in all relationships, people are always simultaneously undergoing and exercising power and are not only its consenting target but also the elements of its articulation.23 For this reason, Foucault stresses that it is not power itself that must be analyzed but power relations, their location, their methods, and their effects.24 To Foucault, people do not exist outside of power relations. Rather, as we all participate in 150

power, we are also the effects of power. Hence, he rejects a notion of power as something solely negative or repressive, insisting instead that it is productive: it produces knowledge, discourse, disciplines, and norms. Power thus produces our very subjectivity through a variety of techniques. For Foucault, one of the most crucial sites for the productive effects of power is the body, and more specifically docile bodies that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved.25 To produce docile bodies, disciplinary techniques of power are employed through multiple institutions (such as schools, factories, the military) as well as social practices that regulate behavior, thoughts, and activities. Such disciplinary techniques are linked to Foucaults notion of bio-power, or the diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations for purposes of economic development and social stability.26 Foucault thus shows the various ways in which power is integrated into every ounce of our physical, intellectual, and mental body. Docile bodies are necessary to the state because they increase economic utility but decrease political dissension. However, disciplinary power is not only a function of the state; it is an important aspect of social relations, where the body, as an effect of power, is a crucial site as well for the articulation of power. As Foucault stresses, disciplinary power is achieved largely through invisible processes and our own internalization of regulating discourses that function to normalize certain thoughts, standards, and behaviors. As we participate in normalizing, disciplinary practices, we also reproduce them, most often without conscious thought. Disciplinary power is thus exercised through its invisibility, yet at the same time imposes in people a compulsory 151

visibility.27 Nowhere is this more clearly explained than with Foucaults appropriation of Jeremy Benthams Panopticon to illustrate the power of self surveillance, self regulation, and our internalization of the inspecting gaze. The Panopticon arranges space so that it induces a state of permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.28 It is powers invisibility, the possibility of surveillance, that is crucial to its productive function. In his later work, Foucault focused on the notion of governmentality, or the underlying rationalities used by states to improve the prosperity, security, and well being of both the state and the individual, and how individuals are integrated into and comply with these rationalities.29 Governmentality involves both how to govern others and how to govern oneself.30 As Thomas Lemke notes, Governmentality is introduced by Foucault to study the autonomous individuals capacity for self-control and how this is linked to forms of political rule and economic exploitation.31 A key aspect of governmentality is the interaction between what Foucault calls technologies of power or domination and technologies of the self. Technologies of the self permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality.32 Though governmentality encompasses the states role in guidance of the populace and forming consensus, in focusing on technologies of the self, Foucault stresses that he is most interested in how an individual acts upon himself.33

152

Common western perceptions of China often invoke the authoritarian nature of the Chinese Communist Party and the states concerted efforts at social engineering and monitoring the population, in particular through the one-child policy. However, as the state has shifted ideologically and emphasized economic development and consumption to maintain its legitimacy, there has been a simultaneous retreat of the state from many aspects of peoples everyday lives. This has been accompanied through a neoliberal discourse that emphasizes peoples own efforts to achieve their goals, succeed in the economy, and raise their quality. Foucaults concepts of power, discipline, and governmentality thus provide a useful framework for understanding how people situate themselves in Chinas current discourse of modernity and how this discourse produces particular subjects. However, while Foucaults insights into the productive nature of power, the role of self-regulation, and the technologies of the self are extremely compelling and relevant across cultures, like the grand narratives of modernity his analysis neglects any substantive attention to gender. As Sandra Bartky argues, Foucault treats the body throughout as if it were one, as if the bodily experiences of men and women did not differ and as if men and women bore the same relationship to the characteristic institutions of modern life.34 She adds that while men and women are both subject to disciplinary practices, some of which are the same, there are a range of disciplines that are specifically applied to women. These disciplinary practices of femininity are designed to produce a certain body size; a repertoire of gestures, postures, and movements; and an ornamented body.35 Furthermore, because these are normalized they are part of the process by which the ideal body of femininityand hence the 153

feminine body-subjectis constructed.36 Susan Bordo adds that such dominant forms of gendered selfhood and subjectivity are not maintained primarily through coercion (though they certainly can be) but rather through ones own self-surveillance and adherence to gender norms.37 Both Bartky and Bordo attend to the politics of appearance that are perpetuated through an internalization of an inspecting gaze and to the power relations that produce a certain, gendered, cultured, practiced body. Of course, these are intricately linked to practices of consumption. Modernity, Consumption, and the Self If modernity is simultaneously about autonomy and individuality as well as techniques of normalization that arise within the growth of capitalism and urbanization, then it is no wonder that a central aspect of being modern is increased attention to the presentation of the self, most often through consumption and display of commodities. Within modernity, consumption becomes not just about utility but instead a way to assert symbolically ones taste, status, and identity. Erving Goffman called the tools and commodities that people use in the presentation of the self ones identity kit38 while Stewart Ewen has used the term commodity self to denote how ones sense of selfhood, identity and, by extension, relations with others, is an amalgamation of various commodities which are used and displayed. As Ewen notes, style and fashion commodities are important aspects of subjectivity, providing a powerful medium of encounter and exchange.39 Likewise, consumer goods become instruments for the construction of self, even if this commodity self is a surrogate self.40 Jean Baudrillard and others argue that in postmodernity, or what Giddens calls late 154

modernity, objects of consumption operate within the logic of signification, taking on meanings as signs that bear little relationship to their functional purpose.41 Such signs relate to each other in opposition and serve to differentiate individuals from one another as well as to confer status. Perhaps Pierre Bourdieu has provided one of the most detailed analyses of the relationship between consumption, taste, differentiation, and the power relations that inhere in these phenomena. Bourdieu persuasively argues that taste and social class are intricately intertwined and that notions of taste serve to mark difference and reproduce systems of domination. To Bourdieu, the aesthetic disposition, or ones taste unites and separates; it is also how one classifies oneself and is classified by others.42 The myth of natural taste, which is actually produced through particular social and cultural assumptions, serves to legitimate social difference and stratification. As he states, Objectively and subjectively aesthetic stances adopted in matters like cosmetics, clothing or home decoration are opportunities to experience or assert ones position in social space, as a rank to be upheld or a distance to be kept.43 Key to Bourdieus concept of taste is the habitus the structuring structure or ones space of life-styles that is internalized and generates ones dispositions, perceptions, habits, and practices.44 Central also to Bourdieus discussion of taste are cultural and symbolic capital. Cultural capital is a form of capital that can be embodied, for example in long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body, such as distinct types of knowledge, competencies, practices, and tastes that are cultivated over time. It can also be objectified in the form of cultural goods, such as artworks, instruments, machines, and books as well as institutionalized, as in the form of a university degree.45 155

Symbolic capital, on the other hand, is any form of capital that is not recognized as such but nonetheless confers prestige, status, or honor.46 Bourdieus notions of the habitus, taste, and forms of capital, while different in their explanatory origin, can be linked to Foucaults notion of power and discourse, in that both posit the productive nature of power and the internalization of norms and practices. In the remainder of this chapter, I show how a vast array of discourses, power relations, and consumption behaviors shape migrant womens socio-techno practices associated with mobile phones in Beijing. More specifically, I draw from my fieldwork to elaborate the mobile phone as a metonym for a particular kind of modernity, one that is constitutive of migrant womens position within contemporary China. Indeed, migrant womens conception of both migration and technology evolves from government discourses of development as well as internalization of such discourses and translation of these into technologies of the self. As Rofel states, Modernity enfolds and explodes by means of global capitalist forms of domination in conjunction with state techniques for normalizing its citizens.47 In using the mobile phone to gain access to a hybrid rural-urban identity, the experience of migrant women gives credence to Rofels words, and reveals that alternative modernities are best understood through capturing and comprehending the everyday. Becoming Modern: Mobile Phone as Metonym for Modernity How then are mobile phones as used and understood by migrant women integrated into Chinas discourses of development and modernity, and how are they central in constructing a modern identity? To answer this question, it is necessary first to situate 156

the mobile phone within the urban consumer practices and modes of constructing female subjectivity that predate its arrival, most notably clothing and make-up. When a rural woman moves to the city, certainly part of her forming a modern identity occurs through being in a certain place a city and not a village and through being engaged in a certain occupation service work and not agriculture. Another part of this transformation, however, is achieved through internalization of powerful disciplinary techniques that reveal the direct grip that culture has on material bodies.48 As discussed in the previous chapter, within the social and cultural milieu of contemporary China, the rural has been constructed as lagging behind, and, in Chinese anthropologist Yan Hairongs words, as a field of death for the modern personhood desired by young women, who imagine the spaces of hope for such personhood to be somewhere else, in the city.49 However, once in the city, migrant women are subject to stringent regulatory practices regarding their appearance, gait, gestures, and speech. Their bodies, like all bodies, emit particular signs, in this case signs that signify their rural status. The normalizing gaze of the urban milieu is thus a powerful force that motivates most young migrant women to participate in the very disciplinary practices of femininity that Sandra Bartky delineates. For example, many of the women I knew told me at home in the countryside they never worried too much about their appearance. They dressed rather simply, they did not use cosmetics, and they kept their hair cut short. In the city, however, they instantly became aware of their bumpkin appearance, and this awareness results from the disapproving stares and verbal scorn of urban residents. This was most clearly explained to me by a waitress I knew named Ji Hua. The first time I interviewed her 157

was during one of her rare days off from the restaurant where she worked. When we met, she was wearing a pink fuzzy sweater, tight jeans, high-heeled boots, bright pink lipstick and a thick layer of eye make-up. Though it was chilly outside, she did not wear a coat presumably because this would have diminished her performance of dominant femininity. At one point in our conversation, she told me, Clothes and make-up have become really important, especially when I compare myself to a Beijing person. In the countryside, people wear whatever. People arent that concerned with it because there is nothing to buy. To go shopping for clothes means taking a one-hour bus ride. Its very inconvenient, and anyway we dont have a lot of money.50 Several other women told me that they had made a lot of effort at changing their outward appearance once they had moved to Beijing. This change was as much a result of the pleasure they took in shopping and wearing clothes they couldn't buy at home as their equally strong desire to avoid the rude stares and remarks of Beijing residents. The Mobile Phone and the Presentation of the Self Just as clothing and make-up are key factors in most migrant womens construction of a hybrid rural-urban female identity, increasingly cell phones are as well. Nearly every migrant woman (and all the migrant men) with whom I spoke no matter her salary, occupation, or education had a mobile phone. The only exceptions to this were the 32 young women enrolled in the computer training course (because they were not working and had no income) as well as four working women.51 All of these students eagerly desired to buy a mobile phone, as indicated in the quotes that began this chapter, and many had bought a phone by the time I left Beijing.

158

One way to convey the significance of a mobile phone in the lives of migrant women is through simple economics. Most of the women in this study earned an average of 800 1,000 yuan/month (approximately $104 to $130), including overtime, and paid the equivalent of one months salary and often more for their phone, although cheaper models were available.52 They also usually spent 50 to 100 yuan per month (about $6.50 to $13) on prepaid phone cards. Even with those whose father, uncle, or older sibling had supplied them with a hand-me-down handset, the first big urban purchase of every migrant with whom I spoke was a cell phone. Time after time, my informants could recite the date, time, and place of the purchase, who had accompanied them, the price, how long it had taken for them to save up enough money, and their feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment at having acquired this personal, portable device. Although a few items of inexpensive clothing may have been bought before the cell phone, beyond a television, a music player, or even a precious train ticket home after months of being away, a mobile phone was, as Chen Jingfei, a woman I knew who worked at a marketplace put it, the first, most expensive, important, gift to myself, ever.53 Another woman I knew told me she slept with her phone because it was so important to her. Some women invested in more costly phones with cameras and music players, some purchased more expensive foreign brands, such as a Nokia or Motorola, but many bought cheaper domestic models or even second-hand and brandless phones that allowed for simple voice calls and texting. In some cases there appeared to be a tradeoff between either purchasing a Chinese model with a camera and a music player, and a more prestigious foreign model without such extra functions. Regardless of the brand or 159

the actual functions, of extreme importance for most women was the phones appearance, as is quite evident in the following conversation I had with Zhang Xiumei, a young woman who worked as a greeter in a photography studio: CW: May I see your mobile phone? ZXM: Sure. CW: Its a Lenovo. ZXM: Yes. CW: (Pointing to the scenery on the screensaver) Where was this taken? ZXM: It came with the phone. CW: Its pretty. ZXM: No, its so ugly. I regret buying this phone because its so ugly. CW: You regret buying it? ZXM: Yes, when I first bought it I wanted to choose a good looking one, but this one is so ugly. CW: Its ugly? ZXM: Its ugly. CW: Why do you say that? ZXM: Because of the color. CW: What color do you want? ZXM: White, or pink. I regret buying this. It looks like it has a third eye [because of the camera lens]. CW: How much did it cost? ZXM: 1,200 yuan [about $156] CW: 1, 200. Thats a bit expensive, dont you think? ZXM: Yes, especially considering how ugly it is. Also, the quality isnt as good as, like, a Nokia or a Motorola. So I regret buying it. CW: Why did you choose it? ZXM: I dont know. I was persuaded by a clever salesperson (laughs).54 Many other women also said their phone had to look pretty, and like Zhang Xiumei some women expressed embarrassment at having a phone that was too big or old. Many women had decorated their phones with stickers, jewelry, special covers, or, in a few cases, rhinestones. The stickers were usually photos of themselves alone or with a close friend, emphasizing the phone as a socio-techno representation of the self. Such stress placed on the appearance of the phone coheres with the notion of the 160

importance of consumer goods in constructing personal identity within modernity and late modernity, or what Mike Featherstone has called the intensifying of the aestheticization of everyday life.55 The concern for the prettiness of the phone, in particular a desire for a pink-colored phone or the application of decorations such a rhinestones are also clearly an assertion and a reflection of a type of modern Chinese female subjectivity, which as discussed in the previous chapter, emphasizes essentialized notions of gender. Zhang Xiumeis regret over having purchased an ugly phone reveals the normalization and internalization of these dominant notions of femininity. Of course, in other studies, mobile phones have been found to be important among young people in the presentation of the self, as a part of the self, as status symbols, or as a form of youth cultural capital. I often found manifestations of these as well in my fieldwork; for example, some women told me they felt like their phone had become part of them. However, perhaps most importantly the mobile phone was directly and explicitly associated with the modern, and by extension, the urban. As Luo Judi, who sold earrings and hair accessories in one of the large marketplaces, told me, If you live in the city and you dont have a mobile phone especially someone my age others look down on you.56 Other women echoed such sentiments a phone was clearly part of being modern, or developed and along with new clothing and make-up which for rural women are especially powerful disciplinary practices of urban femininity, as mentioned above was a form of symbolic capital that set them apart from their peers still at home in the countryside.

161

For young migrant women, then, mobile phone ownership takes on a dual symbolism it is part of youth culture and it is part of being modern and this is a result of how the discourses surrounding both Chinas development and the development of rural women are intertwined. As mentioned in chapter two, in the Chinese media and in the everyday speech of urbanites, female migrants are often portrayed as passive, backward, nave, and of general low quality. They are positioned in such discourses within the context of Chinas socio-cultural traditions, and they also exemplify the connection made by Chandra Mohanty between gender, capitalism, and globalization, as they are thought to be docile, suited to certain gendered occupations, and easily exploited; hence, they constitute a flexible labor force in the global economy.57 Currently, Chinas modernization is synonymous with the expansion of the market economy; however, the exploitative labor practices this has entailed have been erased through a discourse in which migration is framed as providing an opportunity for rural women to become modern and to benefit, not only financially, but also by seeing the world, developing themselves, and gaining some skills. Through Chinas structural and ideological transformations, the rural is overwhelmingly positioned as backward, uncivilized, and undeveloped while the urban has been constructed literally and figuratively as synonymous with modernity, progress, and quality (suzhi). As discussed in the previous chapter, suzhi, which encompasses quality as a whole, also refers to the somewhat ephemeral qualities of civility, self-discipline, and modernity and is related to how the self is valued as well as a sense of self-value in the market economy.58 162

Suzhi can thus be understood through Foucaults notion of governmentality, in that the discourse of suzhi emanates from the government but has been internalized by Chinese citizens as something they must cultivate, and indeed want to cultivate, to prosper and assure their own happiness and well being.59 It is a technology of the self in that individuals, ostensibly of their own accord or with the help of others, seek to transform their bodies, mentally or physically, to achieve contentment or wisdom. In the city, migrant women because of the intersection of gender, class, and their rural origin bear a particularly heavy burden to improve their suzhi. Yet, rural women who migrate to the city are not just duped into consenting to exploitative work that promises somehow to improve them; they choose this path because they feel they can actually gain something. At the same time, they invariably embrace certain consumer practices as a conscious way to shed their rural essence, as Zhang Xiumei termed it at one point. Thus, for them, a mobile phone is not just a transmission device. It is a socio-techno object that articulates not only youth identity but also a modern, hybrid rural-urban identity. It displays their quality as a manifestation of their economic capital gained through labor. A cell phone also performs as objectified cultural capital as it reveals ones taste; as mentioned earlier it is a form of symbolic capital as well. A cell phone helps establish migrant womens position, however ambiguous, in the city. In short, along with dressing more fashionably, reducing their accent, and all of the other disciplines designed to reform their rural bodies, it is part of their process of identification in the city, or becoming modern.

163

Some scholars have argued that young migrant women merely buy into the false allures of consumption, whereby consumer goods hold an elusive promise of suturing them seamlessly into urban life and masking their alterity.60 Such a position begs the question: why is it when middle class or affluent youth purchase and use mobile phones, the cell phone is immediately heralded as cool artifact of global youth culture, but when economically and socially marginalized young people express the same desires for consumer goods and form identity in relation to such goods this is called false consciousness induced by the evil purveyors of global capitalism? Such a position potentially reifies a marginalized, other subaltern subject that these scholars are trying to challenge. I argue instead that owning a mobile phone is an important part of migrant womens construction of an urban female subjectivity. In purchasing and using a cell phone they are engaged in an act of agency through controlling their personal resources, enhancing their own sense of self worth, and using a device that brings myriad pleasures, including entertainment and social contact. It also allows them access, albeit limited, to the promised comfortable life as well as participation in consumer citizenship, perhaps a more important form of citizenship than their legal citizenship, which is so severely constrained within the city. The Mobile Phone and the Gender of Modernity61 In the previous discussion I noted many womens focus on a particular appearance of the phone one that is socially constructed as aligning with a modern essentialized notion of feminine subjectivity. In this section, I further explore the connection between gender and technology by discussing gendered uses and discourses of mobile phones 164

among the migrant women and men in my study. In my fieldwork, cell phones, their usage, and language explaining such usage revealed much about the social construction of both gender and technology, and the constitutive nature of both. In formulating my argument, I draw primarily from observations and interviews conducted in hair salons, although many of the practices and discourses that I discuss were also prevalent among many migrants I knew, regardless of where they were employed. When I lived in Beijing in the early nineties hair salons were few and far between, and most Chinese friends I knew either cut their own hair or had a relative or a friend cut it for them. Western hotels had expensive salons, but their location and prices meant that local Chinese did not patronize these salons. The most prevalent form of salon was quite makeshift and practical. On weekend mornings, self-taught barbers would set up shop outside along the riverbanks or in parks by bringing a chair, a few towels, a comb, and some scissors. For a nominal fee, they would cut basic unisex styles as customers and friends would hang out chatting, drinking tea, or playing mahjong. These types of outdoor salons are no longer very common in Beijing except on the outskirts, and most of these barbers have either moved on to other jobs or have set up tiny indoor shops. Now in Beijing trendy, fashionable hair salons have cropped up all over. They usually have large windows so that passersby will take a look inside and decide to get a haircut or a massage. The inside dcor is often brightly colored with pictures of western and Asian models hanging on the walls. The employees are mostly young male and female migrants, who often sport spiky, colored hair and wear blue jeans, stylish tshirts, and sneakers.

165

Hair salons in Beijing thus serve as a very tangible manifestation of the transformations the city has undergone in the last decade or so. On the one hand, they are a result of the market reforms that have ushered in a service economy. On the other hand, they visibly represent a society that has transitioned from one based on collective values and asceticism, and where showing concern for physical beauty was deemed bourgeois and could result in an individual being severely reprimanded, to a contemporary landscape where beauty and fashion are revered. This change has resulted from a desire to reclaim natural gender differences suppressed during the Mao era as well as an influx of images of cosmopolitan style that circulate through the Chinese and transnational media. All but the tiniest of salons which were more like barbershops and deemed traditional (meaning old-fashioned) by the women I knew presented a microcosm of the essentialized notions of gender and the resulting gendered disciplines, stratification, and power relations that exist in contemporary China, and these were also manifest in mobile phone use in the salons, as I will explain shortly. Hair salons in Beijing (perhaps like everywhere else) are physical terrains where the performativity of gender is continuously reconstituted through the services requested and rendered that reinstate norms of appearance in line with conventional notions of masculinity and femininity. This observation is similar to those made of African-American beauty salons and Korean nail salons in the U.S. (to give just two examples), and thus in and of itself is not remarkable.62 What is exceptional is how the discursive environment of the salons also constructs the employees as highly gendered subjects in ways that go far deeper than appearance. For example, in all but one salon I visited, I was told that women were 166

not allowed to be stylists, meaning they could not cut hair, and interestingly this one exception had a female manager. This unspoken rule can be traced to the old Chinese maxim of valuing men and belittling women (zhongnanqingn), and it persists in the belief that because cutting hair is seen as requiring high technical skill (gaojishu), it is therefore reserved for men.63 Women, on the other hand, are only allowed to do the practical (shiyong) or unskilled jobs, which include washing and drying hair, applying (but not mixing) hair color, giving massages (amo), cleaning up the salon, and greeting customers and storing their belongings in a locker for safekeeping. In all of the salons that I visited, the male employees who are the stylists tend to control the salon, often giving orders to the women, supervising them, and treating them in a subservient manner. Male stylists absorbed in a card game or other diversion barely glance at a customer who enters a salon since it is the females job to greet the customer and do all of the preparations up to the actual haircut. On several occasions I observed that even when all of the women in a salon were already occupied with other clients and all of the male stylists were free, a new customer would nonetheless have to wait for a female to wash and comb out their hair. The males also had their own physical space a station with their name often engraved above the mirror and an ideological space supported by their status, their income (they made two or three times more money than the women), and their ownership of time: they had more days off per month and more down time while at work, which they often spent playing cards, playing games on their mobile phones, or going outside for a smoke.

167

Customers, both male and female, were also more likely to treat women working at salons in a demeaning manner. For example, one morning while I was at one of the salons that I frequented, a woman from her appearance and accent most likely a Beijing resident came in to ask if the salon offered a certain type of hair treatment. Cui Yiping, the young woman who was working at the time, told the woman she did not think that they offered this service but she would check with the stylist when he arrived (stylists always arrive later in the morning, after the salon has been cleaned). The woman repeated her question, and when Cui Yiping reiterated that she didnt know the answer, the woman berated her, called her foolish (sha), and left. This incident is indicative of the type of treatment migrants in general receive from urban residents, and is also based on the broad perception that women who work in hair salons are morally suspect and thus not worthy of respect. This is because hair salons that give massages are associated with prostitution, since massage parlors are indeed often fronts for prostitution. Though it is easy to tell the difference between a legitimate and red light salon, such prejudice and suspicion extends to nearly all women employed in hair salons. It should be noted that as a Korean-style salon, Cui Yipings salon did not even offer any type of massage service. The gender stratification and dominant notions of modern essentialized masculinity and femininity that were evident in the jobs, behaviors, attitudes, and hierarchy of the salons were also reified through mobile phone use. In every hair salon I visited, male employees had more expensive, hi-tech mobile phones with more functions than the female employees. In fact, nearly every male with whom I spoke had a phone with a music and video player as well as Internet capability, and this was also 168

the case with males I met in other occupations. Although going online via a mobile phone is quite expensive in Beijing, these young men had invariably secured a low fixed rate for unlimited Internet access early on when China Mobile had offered inexpensive packages to entice new customers. For example, although while I was in Beijing accessing the Internet via cell phone cost about 30 yuan (about $4.00) per hour, the males in the salons often had a deal where they paid 15 yuan per month for unlimited access. The only exceptions were young men who had just arrived from the countryside and were still in training, and who tended to have inexpensive phones with only basic functions. These were also the only males I ever saw greet customers, wash hair, or sweep the floor, and this was only at a few salons. The young women, on the other hand, overall had less expensive phones, usually Chinese models, with basic voice and texting functionality and in some cases a camera. Only one woman had previously had a higher end phone and Internet access through the phone (which she had since dropped and broken), but she was clearly the exception. In her own words, she was like a boy (xiang nanhaizi). Of course, such differences were partially due to financial reasons. Male migrants usually earn more than females, even when they have the same job, just as urban men make more than urban women in China. However, I argue that this phenomenon goes much deeper than finances and is a result of the way dominant gender norms have been reconfigured in the post-Mao era. As discussed in chapter two, in todays China as a way to repudiate the Maoist past, modernity is linked to essentialized notions of gender. In particular, a modern woman melds traditional and westernized standards of outward beauty and feminine comportment. Working in tandem with this 169

reclamation of a more traditional notion of female subjectivity is a consumer culture that emphasizes gender binaries and the sexualization of womens bodies. Such dominant gender ideologies were manifested in the way the participants in my study understood technology. Male migrants often used and displayed their mobile phones as signifiers of their higher status and masculinity vis--vis migrant women and gendered discourses of technology use, exemplifying the performative nature of gender, were pervasive among the men and women with whom I spoke. For example, I frequently visited a hair salon near my apartment in Beijing to have my hair washed and to get a shoulder massage. During these occasions I spoke numerous times to the three young women who worked at the salon about their lives in Beijing, their mobile phone use, their goals for the future, and so on. Once while I was at the salon the boss son (who managed the place in his fathers absence) was busy playing a game online on his phone. He was eager to show me his phone a Nokia smartphone that most likely had cost around 4,000 yuan (over $520) and which had all sorts of features and applications that he deftly manipulated with barely a glance at the touchpad. Once he had finished his demonstration, I asked Xiao Wu, who was washing my hair, if she ever played games on her phone or online and she said that she did not. When I asked her why not, she replied, Guys like that sort of thing more. They like to show that they are hi-tech. Girls dont care about showing off like that. They just like to chat. This starts even from childhood, you know.64 I met other women in a variety of occupations who discussed men and womens mobile phone usage in similar terms. For example, Tian Ai, a young woman who sold clothing in a market reiterated that girls just like to chat and send 170

short messages. Guys like to exchange information and pictures.65 Still another young woman told me that its important for guys to show off and appear cool and up-todate.66 As I was having my conversation with Xiao Wu, there was a constant popping of firecrackers outside since it was during the two-week Chinese New Year celebrations. As we listened to the firecrackers exploding, Xiao Wu added, Its like firecrackers. When I grew up in the countryside, girls just watched as the boys played with the firecrackers.67 Unintentionally and quite simply, Xiao Wu had drawn a link between the most ancient of Chinese technologies gunpowder and firecrackers and the most modern of western technologies the mobile phone that revealed how gender and technology usage are mutually constitutive constructions. As feminist scholar of technology Cynthia Cockburn states, Gender is a social achievement. Technology too.68 Just as gender identity is necessarily relational, so too technological artifacts entail relations, and these relations enter into our gendered identities69 (emphasis in original), in this case a modern female subjectivity underpinned by traditional notions of gender. After Xiao Wu explained quite clearly the socially constructed nature of men and womens relationship to technology, she also offered a reason for why women could not cut hair. Its not the skill (that guys are better at), she said, Its that they can see beauty. And anyway, girls are getting their hair cut for guys to look at, right?70 The certainty with which she said these words denied the possibility of questioning the gendered hierarchy of the salon or the larger society, or the gendered nature of technology use. It thus appears that the disciplinary practices of femininity do not only 171

regulate a womans body size, gestures, posture, or self ornamentation. They also pervade usages of technology, and once again position women as passive, chatty, and concerned with feelings while men are active, rational, and powerful senders of information. These discursive constructions of gender and technology were echoed numerous times in my fieldwork. Though cell phones are a modern medium that might displace space and time, they do not necessarily disrupt traditional notions of gender, particularly when these very notions are conceived of as modern. As Rita Felski notes, (T)he stories we create in turn reveal the inescapable presence and power of gender symbolism.71 In my study, the actual phones possessed, their functionality, their usage, and perhaps most significantly, the way they were spoken about all served to strengthen gender norms and differentiation.72 Though of course some women shared with me their obvious displeasure with their subordinate position in their jobs due to the fact that they were women, especially in the hair salons, most still seemed to be resolved to their fate, confirming once again the power of normalizing discourse and the internalization of a self-critiquing gaze. Modern Skills While the mobile phone is integrated into Chinas discourses of development and modernization in the way it can function as cultural and symbolic capital as well as support a modern feminine identity, it also embodies and necessitates a set of modern practices and competencies that are constitutive of self-development and suzhi in contemporary China. Cell phone usage entails particular forms of literacy, 172

technical know-how, and etiquette, which are also forms of embodied cultural capital. Here I discuss each of these aspects of mobile phone use, the challenges they can pose for migrant women, and certain tactics migrant women use to overcome these same challenges. Telephony is usually only minimally associated with literacy since even those with almost no reading or writing skills most likely have learned basic numbers and thus can manipulate a telephone keypad to make a voice call with relative ease. However, as opposed to traditional fixed-line phones, cell phones, of course, also have text messaging functionality. In China, text messaging is the predominant form of communication via cell phones, especially among low-income populations due to the relatively inexpensive cost of a text message (about 10 Chinese fen, or 1.3 U.S. cents). Because of the widespread usage of text messaging, cell phone usage in China demands a certain degree of literacy. In fact, because of the design features of basic mobile phones and the way Chinese characters are inputted, text messaging requires two forms of literacy. First, a word must be typed in pinyin, or the standardized romanization system of Chinese characters in the Peoples Republic. For example, for the word wo, meaning I in Chinese, the letters w-o must be typed. Once inputted, several characters will appear for the pinyin wo, and the user must then select the proper character. Though the most common characters appear first on the screen, sometimes as many as 30 characters might be available as choices since morphemes in Chinese always have several different meanings according to which tone is used. Furthermore, the same combination of letters and tone can have more than one meaning and thus will

173

be represented by a different character. Though predictive text is a feature of Chinese mobile phone interfaces, just as in English this does not always imply ease of use. Using a cell phone is not just a matter of literacy, however it also involves certain technical skills. The mobile phone user must be able to navigate the various functions of the phone, such as the address book, text message inbox and outbox, MMS, and voicemail (though this last function is almost never used in China). There are also a variety of settings to be manipulated, including ringstyle, ringtones, wallpaper, and the like. Phones with cameras, music players, or games of course place added technical demands on the user. Additional functionalities, such as video and Internet capabilities, necessitate even greater skills. In addition to literacy and technical skills, cell phones also require knowledge of conventional telephone etiquette, such as starting phone calls, using minimal responses to indicate one is listening, and being able to tactfully communicate a desire to end a call. These can all be viewed as forms of cultural capital, but the cell phone has also generated additional rules and norms that a user must learn, and these often demand certain literacy and technical skills. Again, these norms and practices are especially associated with text messaging. For example, consistent with much prior cell phone research among youth, all of the young women I met agreed that text messages must be responded to relatively immediately, otherwise the receiver will be thought of as rude.73 The only exception occurs when the receiver is unable to reply because they are preoccupied or prohibited from using their phone at work. While I was in Beijing, whenever someone responded to a message more than 20 or 30 minutes after I had sent it their reply always contained a profuse apology. 174

I elaborate on these various requirements of literacy, technical ability, and etiquette because among educated users these imply access to a taken-for-granted modernity and are not assumed to pose any difficulty. However, for women with limited education and minimal technical skills, the requirements and expectations attached to mobile phone usage can present challenges. Some women I interviewed expressed anxiety about not always knowing which character to choose and some said they did not always know how to respond properly to a message. For example, Hu Lanying worked in a migrant market in the northern part of Beijing. She had only had one year of middle school before migrating to the city. When I asked her about text messaging with her friends she said: I like to send and receive messages because it is the only way I stay in contact with my friends. But my friends sometimes send me messages and I dont know always have the right words to reply. My friends criticized me for being so slow, and part of it is because of Chinese characters. But it is also because Im at a loss for what to say. You know my level of knowledge is so low. Others I knew were also ridiculed by their peers when they didnt understand a message or replied too slowly; in fact, I witnessed such derision and disciplining on more than a few occasions, and this ridicule wasnt necessarily virtual. In one instance, I was sitting in the dormitory of some of the young women who had graduated from the computer training course and who were now working in a company where they inputted financial data and other records from banks and large global companies. One of them was showing me the phone she had just bought. Like so many others it was her first big purchase since earning an income, and she was eager for me to see it. As we looked at the phones wallpaper, one of her co-present peers sent her a message. When she was 175

too slow in typing her reply, all of the other women made fun of her. She was so upset by their teasing and her loss of face that she ran out of the room crying as I sat there fairly astonished. I was also the subject of such ribbing when I was too slow to get a joke sent via SMS and this teasing came in the form of a text message (!). Cell phones clearly usher in new socio-techno disciplinary practices, new techniques of normalization, and internalization of what could be called a regulatory technological gaze. The ridiculing and anxiety about responding to a message described above could be understood as a form of bullying, which is unfortunately a common practice among youth in a variety of countries. However, in the case of migrant women it not only marks in-group/out-group boundaries of peer groups. It also reifies their marginal status in Chinese society as a whole and again exemplifies Foucaults notion of governmentality. Official discourses that position migrant women as behind and in need of development are internalized and reproduced through migrant women themselves. To avoid such ridicule and discipline, one must work to improve her knowledge and her quality; in other words, one must become modern. In that migrant women seek a means of remedying such shortcomings, we can see how technologies of power thus merge with technologies of the self. Indeed, to deal with the challenges posed in particular by text messaging, many migrant women embrace a variety of tactics to ensure their continued cell phone use and to resist marginalization. For some, this might mean making more voice calls even though calling is more costly or relying on the reading and input skills of gracious friends and colleagues. There is also heavy usage of pre-written messages (which I will discuss more fully in the next chapter) that can be found in inexpensive books available 176

in kiosks throughout the city or downloaded from the Internet, though invariably the women in my study received these messages from friends and then forwarded them.74 I knew one woman who insisted that about 90 percent of her text messaging content was in the form of prewritten messages. Another informant stated, The majority of the messages I send are pre-written. Why not? Its easy and convenient, and they can express what I want to say. In essence, with such tactics migrant women are making do and creatively insisting on their continued participation in a form of mobile modernity. Conclusion As Laurie Kendall notes, Modernities are the cultural articulations of modernizations as self-conscious experiences and discourses, judgments, and feelings about these experiences,75 all of which are gendered, and I would add, cross-cut as well by class, age, and place. In contemporary China, modernization has meant the pursuit of wealth, beauty, and a comfortable life, and has brought renewed emphasis on education, knowledge, and technology. All of these factors construct a discursive context where mobile phones in the lives of migrant women have become articulated in myriad ways to being modern. For migrant women in Beijing, a mobile phone, as a material object, can be a form of cultural capital. It can also serve as symbolic capital in that ownership of a cell phone allows rural women access to an urban identity, however liminal. The very act of possessing a phone is a way to assert ones autonomy from an othered rural identity and to feel part of a modern, cosmopolitan culture. In other words, mere possession is a 177

form of empowerment. At the same time, cell phones have a disciplining function as they are situated within and reproduce a discourse that articulates possession of technology and technological abilities to ideologies of progress, quality, knowledge, fashion, and hipness. They also normalize and demand certain skills, literacies, and etiquette. As a metonym for modernity, cell phones reveal that technology is never neutral and always works as a form of knowledge and power.76 As Rofel states, Though being modern is an imagined status, it is not a mere mythical representation. People deeply feel modernity in their experiences precisely because techniques of normalization are secured in its name.77 In China, as the quest for suzhi melds notions of the individual self and the national citizen as responsible for improvement and development, powerful normalizing discourses and practices are implicated in notions of modernity. Thus, as both a technological artifact and a technology of the self, a cell phone has become a central tool in young migrant womens construction however imagined of a modern, hybrid rural-urban identity.

178

Chapter Three Endnotes 1. To protect the confidentiality of participants, all names are pseudonyms. 2. Goldstein, Introduction; Rofel, Other Modernities. 3. Rofel, Other Modernities, 12. 4. Interview with Luo Li Kun, Beijing, December 7, 2006. 5. Modernity is obviously a huge term that has various meanings depending on the context in which it is used. Here I am distinguishing modernity from modernization, meaning projects for economic development, industrialization, etc.; modernism, meaning trends in art, such as the troubling of representation, that arose during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and modernit, which refers to the aestheticization of everyday life. For an insightful overview of these terms, see Felski, Gender of Modernity, 12-13. 6. Berman, All that is Solid, 16. 7. Ibid., 15. 8. As mentioned in chapter two, migrant women frequently give these reasons for leaving home. 9. Giddens, Consequences of Modernity, 3. 10. Berman, All that is Solid, 15. 11. Felski, Gender of Modernity, 2. 12. Ibid.; Hodgson, Of Modernity/Modernities, 8-9. 13. Hodgson, Of Modernity/Modernities, 9. 14. See, for example, the discussion in Yang, Introduction, in Spaces of Their Own, 18-19. 15. See, for example, Goldstein, Introduction, and Rofel, Other Modernities. 16. See, for example, Chakrabarty, Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History; Cooper and Stoler, Tensions of Empire; McClintock, Imperial Leather. 17. Hodgson, Of Modernity/Modernities, 7. 179

18. Rofel, Other Modernities, 9. 19. Ibid., 9-10. 20. Goldstein, Introduction, 6. 21. Ibid. 22. Foucault, History of Sexuality, 92-93. 23. Foucault, Two Lectures, 98. 24. Foucault, Subject and Power, 329. 25. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 136. 26. Foucault, History of Sexuality, 140. 27. Ibid., 187. 28. Ibid., 201. 29. Foucault, Governmentality,102-103. 30. Ibid., 87. 31. Lemke, Foucault, Governmentality, and Critique, 4. 32. Foucault, Technologies of the Self, 18. 33. Ibid., 19. 34. Bartky, Foucault, Femininity, Power, 65. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., 71. 37. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 27. 38. Goffman, Asylums, 14. 39. Ewen, All Consuming Images, 76. 180

40. Ibid. 41. Baudrillard, Ideological Genesis of Needs; Featherstone, Postmodernism and Aestheticization. 42. Bourdieu, Distinction, 56. 43. Ibid., 57. 44. Ibid., 170-171. 45. Bourdieu, Forms of Capital, 243. 46. Ibid., 245. 47. Rofel, Other Modernities, 13. 48. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 16. 49. Yan, Spectralization of the Rural, 578. 50. Interview with Ji Hua, Beijing, December 2, 2006. 51. Of the four working women who were non-users of cell phones, two of them were not allowed to have a phone, as will be explained in chapter five, and the other two said they had no friends and rarely ventured far from their workplace so they did not need a phone. 52. The inordinate amount of money that migrant laborers spend on their cell phones has also been noted by Law and Peng, Use of Mobile Phones, 247; see also Yang and Zhu, Shouji. It should be noted that the subjects in the latter study were in a slightly higher socio-economic strata than the women in my study. 53. Interview with Chen Jingfei, Beijing, October 30, 2006. 54. Interview with Zhang Xiumei, Beijing, February 5, 2007. 55. Featherstone, Postmodernism and the Aestheticization, 270. 56. Interview with Luo Judi, Beijing, March 14, 2007. 57. Chandra Mohanty, Feminism Without Borders, 142. 58. Yan, Neoliberal Governmentality, 494. 181

59. Yan Hairong has linked governmentality to suzhi discourse in showing the interconnection between poverty relief campaigns, migration, and migrant womens cultivation of suzhi. She focuses on migrant women recruited as baomu, or nannies, for urbanites and how this work discipline is framed as providing the women an opportunity to cultivate suzhi. See ibid. 60. Pun, Consumption or Subsumption. 61. As mentioned earlier, this is the title of Rita Felskis book that sought to put gender into analyses of modernity. 62. See, for example, Banks, Hair Matters; see also Kang, Managed Hand. 63. I should clarify that this policy was widespread in Beijing but apparently is not necessarily the case in other parts of China. 64. Interview with Xiao Wu, Beijing, February 23, 2007. 65. Interview with Tian Ai, Beijing, December 12, 2006. 66. Interview with Xiao Xuan, Beijing, December 8, 2006. 67. Interview with Xiao Wu, Beijing, February 23, 2007. 68. Cockburn, Circuit of Technology, 39. 69. Ibid., 40, 41. 70. Interview with Xiao Wu, February 23, 2007, Beijing. 71. Felski, Gender of Modernity, 1. 72. Gendered discourses were also reported by Lemish and Cohen in their study of mobile phone use in Israel. See On the Gendered Nature. 73. See, for example, Ito, Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, 145; see also Kasesniemi and Rautiainen, Mobile Culture of Children. 186. 74. According to Cartier, Castells and Qiu, in Information Have-less, a small cottage industry has emerged for the writing of jokes and greetings to be sent via SMS. Lin has analyzed some of the text messages found in manuals designed for migrant workers in Romance and Sexual Ideologies in SMS. 75. Kendall, Introduction in Under Construction, 2. 182

76. Cockburn, Circuit of Technology. 77. Rofel, Other Modernities, 17.

183

CHAPTER FOUR: IMMOBILE MOBILITY: NAVIGATING NETWORKS, SOCIALITY, DESIRE, AND INTIMACY If you have a mobile phone, your life is much richer. Cui Yiping, Beijing, December 4, 2006. Leaving the rural village and traveling far away to a strange city for work is obviously a momentous and potentially frightening experience for a young woman. Most of the women in my study were from small communities where kinship and closeknit friendship ties enabled them to navigate their identity rather unambiguously. In other words, their sense of self was in many ways shaped by their position in their family, their relationship with friends and classmates, and the familiarity of local practices, values, and customs. Despite the transformations Chinas countryside has been undergoing throughout the last few decades, many women said their life in the city was very different from where they had grown up. Even the handful from small towns emphasized in their conversations with me the differences between Beijing and home, often by mentioning the vastness of the city and the extent of its development. But of course, the differences went much deeper than Beijings size and infrastructure. Rural migrants who venture to Chinas urban areas are aliens in their own country due to the rigid household registration system and the concomitant cultural prejudices that mark migrants as outsiders, as well as the foreignness of certain urban practices, food, and even toilets. These factors, combined with their vulnerability to exploitation, mean that in almost all instances, rural-to-urban migrants rely on some type of connection usually a relative or a friend in the destination area, but sometimes an institutional intermediary such as a school or job recruitment agency to facilitate their move by 184

providing help with employment, housing, and bureaucratic requirements such as temporary work permits and identification cards. Having a friend or relative in the city clearly helps in the initial transition; however, it is common for newly arrived migrants to experience loneliness and homesickness as well as extreme isolation. As one woman said, When I first moved to Beijing I was so lonely. I cried every night. Sure I had my aunt and uncle, but I didnt want to share these feelings with them.1 Zhang Xiumei, who had worked in a factory in the southern province of Guangdong before moving to Beijing, told me that for nearly the first year she was at the factory, aside from working she only stayed in her dorm and did not go out even when she had rare time off. I was kind of afraid. I was very nave, she said.2 As mentioned in chapter two and will be elaborated below, even migrant workers who have been in an urban area for an extended period of time live what has been called isolated lives, due to work schedules, their outsider status, and the tendency for their lives to revolve around a very small geographic area.3 Clearly, then, a migrant womans emotional and even physical health in the city depend on her ability to develop social ties with others and maintain relationships with those she is close to back home. The cultural and symbolic capital accrued through mobile phone ownership that was discussed in the previous chapter are obviously important but not sufficient reasons for the value placed on the phone. A cell phone is also a crucial tool for maintaining and establishing networks of sociality, particularly for women who frequently either do not have or have only limited access to a fixed-line phone in their place of work or residence.4

185

In this chapter I discuss the way rural-to-urban migrant women use mobile phones to navigate their social networks, express personal desire and aspirations, and forge intimate relationships. Again my concern is not only with the way cell phones are used for communication through the transmission of information, emotions, opinions, and so on. While attending to these important aspects, I also examine a wide range of sociotechno practices linked especially to mobile phone use and show how such practices allow young women to access particular forms of autonomy and explore new modes of identity. In particular, I theorize the mobile phone as allowing for immobile mobility, which I define as a socio-techno means of surpassing spatial, temporal, physical, and structural boundaries.5 Immobile mobility is not to be confused with virtual reality, or those spaces entered into through a computer-simulated environment; rather, it is rooted in the material practices and constraints of the everyday experience particular to the lives of migrant women, and perhaps to other populations that must deal with similar restrictions on their control of space, time, and mobility. In using the term immobile mobility, I also am not emphasizing the way that the mobile phone is frequently used from a fixed place, thus negating its mobile aspect nor how low-income households use cell phones as surrogate landlines that remain in the home.6 Immobile mobility is as much a subjective as a material practice. In looking at migrant womens socio-techno practices, I also ask whether in the midst of opening up new possibilities for autonomy and identity construction such practices possibly reify womens marginalization, through solidifying their status as outsiders and marking them as rural Others. To frame part of this analysis, I rely on Pierre Bourdieus notion of social capital and relate this to Chinese concepts of selfhood 186

and guanxi (relationship). In so doing, I follow the course of other mobile phone researchers who have sought to develop analytic categories through understanding local practices of technology use as these are embedded in larger social and cultural structures and meaning.7 Social Capital and Guanxi Social capital is a difficult term to pin down, since different scholars have used it in numerous ways. It can roughly be defined as the mutual relations, interactions, and networks that emerge among human groups and how these are important for enhancing individual and societal well-being.8 Often implied in the term social capital are issues of trust, norms, and obligation. To Robert Putnam, social capital refers to connections among individualssocial networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them, and he is primarily concerned with the relationship between social capital and civic engagement.9 On the other hand, Barry Wellman, who focuses on how new communication technologies affect interpersonal relationships, uses the term network capital to define the relations with friends, neighbors, relatives, and workmates that significantly provide companionship, emotional aid, goods and services, information, and a sense of belonging.10 While Wellmans definition is certainly useful and appropriate in relation to the mobile phone, in the following discussion I outline Pierre Bourdieus notion of social capital in order to connect it with particular aspects of Chinese society.

187

Bourdieu and Social Capital Bourdieu defines social capital as the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.11 This definition is useful to my analysis for two reasons. First, when discussing social capital (and all forms of capital) Bourdieu attends to its uneven distribution and how it is reproduced in and through people according to their location in a given field. In other words, ones position in society as well as ones habitus (that which generates ones dispositions, viewpoints, tastes, practices, etc.) both enable and constrain access to social capital. Furthermore, since people use social capital as a form of exchange to improve their social and/or economic position, social capital does not just depend on the size of ones network but is also closely related to the volume of capital (economic, cultural, or symbolic) of the members of a persons network.12 Hence, those who are linked to others who have a large quantity of various capital, or resources money, knowledge, position, prestige will have an advantage in the game of society. This is not only because they might be able to draw on these resources, but also because immanent in the social structure is the reproduction of both privilege and inequality as a result of struggles which hinge on the actors distribution and volume of various forms of capital. As Bourdieu states, All positions of arrival are not equally probable for all starting points.13 Bourdieu stresses that social capital cannot be reduced to economic or cultural capital; at the same time it is never completely independent of these since there is usually a large degree of homogeneity between people and their capital.

188

Though Bourdieu has been criticized as being overly deterministic and for constructing the social world as a closed system that leaves no room for resistance or broad social change, he rejects such criticisms, insisting that relations of domination imply and activate resistance.14 His notion of resistance is rather weak, however, since he only defines it as exerting a certain force or producing certain effects and adds that the dominated seldom escape the antinomy of their domination.15 Bourdieus focus on the unequal and exclusionary nature of social capital and his vague references to resistance, while obviously pessimistic, are nonetheless relevant when looking at technology use among rural-to-urban migrant women, perhaps the most marginalized group as a whole in all of China, a country that is becoming increasingly socially stratified. Whether migrant womens use of technology allows them to expand their social capital in ways that may improve their life conditions thus becomes a crucial question. My fieldwork did not seek explicitly to measure social capital per se, but modes of identity construction and struggles for autonomy are constitutive of an individuals networks as well as their position in those networks. Furthermore, while I focus more directly on resistance in the workplace in the next chapter, socio-techno practices that enable immobile mobility can be viewed as enacting resistance, in so far as they refuse circumscribed material conditions and discursive constructions that work to limit migrant womens sense of themselves and the goals they can achieve. The second reason that Bourdieus particular rendering of social capital is relevant to this analysis is that he stresses the effort involved in building and maintaining networks of relationships and how both conscious and unconscious strategies must be used to initiate or reproduce these. Such strategies are aimed at transforming 189

contingent relations, such as those of neighborhood, the workplace, or even kinship, into relationships that are at once necessary and elective, implying durable obligations subjectively felt (feelings of gratitude, respect, friendship).16 When words, symbols, gifts, and other material and immaterial objects are exchanged among members of a group (no matter how large or small) this has the effect of reproducing the group as well as excluding those beyond its boundaries. Thus, producing and reproducing social capital presupposes an unceasing effort of sociability, a continuous series of exchanges in which recognition is endlessly affirmed and reaffirmed.17 The focus on exchange, reciprocity, and group boundaries inherent in social capital is particularly relevant to Chinese concepts of the individual as well as the importance of guanxi, or relationships, in Chinese social structure. The Egocentric Self In contrast to the individual-oriented nature of western cultures, where the autonomy of the individual is presupposed, many have pointed to what they call the relationship-oriented nature of Chinese social organization. In traditional Chinese culture, the individual is never an isolated, separate entity, and there is no unique self outside of social relationships and the personal obligations that inhere in those relationships.18 As Hamilton and Wang state, To be human in Chinese society is to be linked to othersto ones parents, siblings, children, and friendsand to fulfill the obligations of those linkages.19 Fei Xiaotong, one of Chinas preeminent sociologists, has thus likened the pattern of Chinese social structure to the circles that appear on the surface of a lake when a rock is thrown into it, where each person stands at the center of the circles produced by his or her own social influence.20 He uses the term 190

differential mode of association (chaxugeju) as an ideal type to describe this pattern and to emphasize that the more distant the circles of relationships from the center (oneself), the less significant they are in a persons social network. Liang Shuming, a contemporary of Feis, wrote that China has a relationship-based (guanxi benwei) social order, where those who are closest are at the center and have a large degree of mutual affection and obligation.21 It must be pointed out that both of these scholars formulated their theories of Chinese selfhood before 1949 and that they were basing their observations on a predominantly rural society. However, despite the influences of communism, industrialization, urbanization, modernization, and westernization, many have still found utility in conceptualizing the Chinese sense of self as predominantly relationally focused.22 Chinese society, then, is primarily neither individual-oriented (and thus not focused on individual rights or the concept of equality) nor group-oriented, but rather egocentric.23 The differentially categorized circles of social relationships form a network composed of each individuals personal connections, and since they stress differentiation and hierarchical distinctions they imply different obligations, norms of reciprocity, and moral demands.24 At the same time, such circles are discontinuous and highly elastic. As Ambrose King notes, aside from natural relations for example parent-child nonnatural relations are voluntarily constructed with the individual self as the initiator.25 Further, an individual has a large degree of autonomy in deciding whether or not to enter into such voluntarily constructed relationships, of which he or she is the architect.26 In theory any two people can form a connection either through a shared relational category (such as colleague or classmate) or through an intermediary. 191

Guanxi Closely connected to this relationally-based self-orientation is guanxi, literally relationship in Chinese but often understood as personal connections, social networks, or particularistic ties.27 Guanxi is a widely used term in scholarly and popular discourse in China but is also one, like social capital, that can be extremely ambiguous. Some scholars define guanxi solely in instrumental terms, equating it with corruption, bribery, and using others for ones personal or political gain. At the opposite end are those who tend to focus on its more expressive dimensions and its connection to friendship and feelings. Since coming to power the Chinese Communist Party has taken the former view, equating guanxi with feudal thinking and waging endless campaigns and enacting numerous policies to eradicate traditional bonds based on kinship and locality and to replace these instead with a system of universal ethics supporting a socialist morality. Nevertheless, during both the shortage economy characteristic of the Mao era and the current era of marketization, the persistence of guanxi ties across different fields has been observed by numerous scholars.28 Certainly the differences in perceptions (as well as actual practices) of guanxi are due to context and location. Research done in urban areas and in particular in the fields of business and politics in mainland China (and Taiwan) tends to focus on the rather negative qualities of guanxi while scholars doing fieldwork in rural areas are more likely to highlight its expressive aspects. Some believe that more traditional notions of guanxi still prevail in the countryside since the roots of guanxi can be found in rural culture where kinship ties and a tradition of labor exchange and mutual aid and obligation have always been dominant.29 Even these scholars acknowledge, however, 192

that economic development has changed guanxi practices in rural areas, at least in terms of how villagers deal with outsiders with whom they do business.30 Either way, as Gold, Guthrie, and Wank state, guanxi ties: are based on ascribed or primordial traits such as kinship, native place, ethnicity, and also on achieved characteristics such as attending the same school (even if not at the same time), serving together in the same military unit, having shared experiences, such as the Long March, and doing business together. Particularly in the last instance, potential business partners may consciously establish or seek to manufacture guanxi when no prior basis exists, either by relying on intermediaries or establishing a relationship directly. While the bases for guanxi may be naturally occurring or created, the important point is that guanxi must be consciously produced, cultivated, and maintained over time.31 In this regard, guanxi can be seen as similar to social capital, in that both concern networks of relationships that bring potential benefits and that must be cultivated through mutual exchange. However, there are important differences between the two concepts. First, many have pointed out that the mutual benefits and interests entailed in guanxi must be implicit, rather than explicit.32 According to Gold et al., notions of reciprocal obligation and indebtedness make guanxi more than simply an issue of social embeddedness and social connections; it is a system of gifts and favors in which obligation and indebtedness are manufactured, and there is no time limit on repayment.33 They also maintain that guanxi is different from social capital in that while it usually does involve a material aspect of some sort, it is also supposed to contain feelings or sentiment. Thus, instrumentalism and sentiment come together in guanxi, as cultivating guanxi successfully over time creates a basis of trust in a relationship.34 Andrew Kipnis, in his research on rural guanxi practices, most explicitly troubles the binary often drawn between modern western cultures that are based on 193

universal ethics and where gift-giving is supposed to be disinterested exchange, and traditional Asian cultures based on particularism, ritual, and favors, stating, In guanxi, feeling and instrumentality are a totality; thus, guanxi can be seen as unifying what Western bourgeois relationships often separate: material exchange and affectionate feelings.35 In discussions of guanxi, the affective component is usually translated as renqing, meaning proper human feelings, but also referring to the relation-based mode of human nature and social interaction in China; the cultivation and internalization of proper codes of conduct that govern modes of social interaction; and the bond of reciprocity and mutual aid between two people, based on emotional attachment or the sense of obligation and indebtedness.36 On the other hand, ganqing (feeling), puts more emphasis on affect and emotions, and as such this term is used in connection to guanxi only by scholars discussing its more expressive, non-instrumental forms as found with close friendships and familial relationships. I should note here that some scholars do not use the term guanxi when discussing the bonds between family members or close friends since such relationships are supposed to be disinterested and non-instrumental, yet they can serve as a base for potential guanxi.37 Like Kipnis, Yan Yunxiang also did ethnographic fieldwork that examined guanxi practices in a rural village in northern China in the late eighties and early nineties. While Kipnis emphasizes that gift-giving, favors, mutual help, and so on were ways for villagers to materialize ganqing (feeling), Yan shows that guanxi and gift giving form part of a moral economy that interweaves friendship and kinship ties, mutual indebtedness, and emotional feelings. Yan states that guanxi cultivation in village life 194

involves not only instrumentality and rational calculation, but also sociability, morality, intentionality, and personal affection.38 For this reason, villagers often referred to their guanxi networks of personal relations in which they were the center as their society, or their local world. According to Yan, this local world was made up of concentric circles of relationships that were categorized into three zones: the personal core was made up of family members and could also include very close friends; the reliable zone consisted of good friends; and the effective zone (which he translated from the Chinese yiban qinyou, meaning relatives and friends more generally) was larger and more open, and could include all friends, coworkers, relatives, and even potentially (but not likely) all fellow villagers.39 In both rural and urban areas, guanxi must always involve renqing, which does not imply close feelings but rather proper human feelings and social obligations. Because renqing is ruled by the principle of reciprocity, it serves as a medium in social exchanges and can therefore be seen as a kind of resource or social capital in interpersonal transactions.40 In rural areas, ganqing, good or bad feelings, must be involved in guanxi relationships as well.41 I bring up these differences between renqing and ganqing and rural and urban guanxi practices because, as will be explained in more detail below, they relate to both the types of social relationships formed by the women in my study and the ways that they expressed these relationships as evidenced by their mobile phone use. Both Kipnis and Yan acknowledge that the more expressive, emotionally-based guanxi they observed in rural villages was the result of interpersonal relations fostered over a long period of time in a tight-knit, stable (non-mobile) community. Yan states that in such a setting the cultivation of guanxi is more a way of 195

culturally constructing oneself rather than a strategy to exchange resources with others, and renqing is more a part of a persons moral world than an exchangeable resource.42 Kipnis also emphasizes guanxi production as a means of producing oneself, since in a relationally-based concept of the self, relationships are constitutive of ones self.43 However, according to Yan, as economic development brought more interaction between locals and outsiders, villagers began to cultivate temporary, instrumental personal connections, where guanxi became merely a means to an end and renqing was regarded mainly as an exchangeable resource, something that is primarily instrumental and less sentimental or moral.44 The question thus arises, if there are such urban/rural differences in guanxi practices, when rural women move to the city what types of relationships do they cultivate and in what manner? Furthermore, how are these relationships constitutive of their identity? What modes of autonomy vis--vis their parents at home in the village do they establish? And what is the role of mobile phones in all of these processes? Mobile Phones and the Social World of Migrant Women As mentioned in chapter three, nearly every migrant woman I knew in Beijing had a mobile phone. For women who often grew up without a landline in their homes and for whom making a phone call usually meant using a public phone either in their dormitory or at the corner kiosk, a cell phone brought a profoundly new way of keeping in touch with others. It is not surprising, then, that in interviews and conversations when I asked whether a cell phone had made a difference in their lives, invariably and without hesitating the most common answer women gave me was that it was convenient (hen 196

fangbian).45 Before replying they frequently looked at me with puzzlement or amusement, wondering why I would ask such an obvious question. When I pressed them to elaborate on what they meant by convenient, Zhang Xiumeis answer below is very representative. She had worked in a factory in Guangzhou for three years before eventually moving to Beijing in 2004. Her dormitory did not have public phones when she first arrived, but during her last year at the factory two telephones were installed (for about 80 residents) that only took incoming calls. When I met her, she had owned a mobile phone for about a year. As she told me: When I was at the factory in Guangzhou, I wrote a letter to my family about once a week. My family didnt have a phone [until 2003] but our neighbors at the front of the village did, but it was far for my mom to walk, so I only called them from a public phone about once a week. They didnt usually call me. [Now, with a mobile phone] its very convenient. Before no one knew where I was, for example. So, for a long time I didn't keep in touch with a lot of people. So, now with a mobile phone, its really convenient. You can send a text message, or call, chat. Its good. Now people know where you are. Before, [when you went out to work] no one knew where you went.46 Zhang Xiumeis answer brings to light several interesting issues. First, no matter where she went she kept in touch with those closest to her, namely her family. Still, such communication took effort, both on her part and the part of her parents writing letters, scheduling phone calls, using pay phones, traveling some distance, relying on good relations (guanxi) with neighbors. Once her family got their own landline, their efforts towards keeping in touch were eased, but Zhang Xiumeis were not until she owned a mobile phone. Her story also reveals the difficulty she had in maintaining ties with non-family members. Rural-to-urban migrants are a mobile population in the 197

respect that they leave their native place to seek work and because they tend to change jobs frequently, often within the destination city but also between provinces, as in Zhang Xiumeis case. A mobile phone therefore provides a means of keeping in touch with friends and building ones social network that was previously impossible. Expanding Social Networks Most of the women in this study tended to occupy a very small social world, for a number of reasons. They work extremely long hours, often 10 or 12 or even 14 hours a day, some without ever having a day off and others with just one or two days off per month. Work schedules are frequently extended by the constant pressure (or sometimes demand) to work overtime. Arbitrary training sessions or, in the case of several of the women I knew that worked at hair salons, mandatory participation in teamwork meetings lengthens work days even more. Rare time off is usually spent attending to such basics as doing laundry, catching up on sleep, or going to the market. Friends often live in another part of the city or are coworkers who dont have the same day off, and many migrant women are reluctant to venture out of their local neighborhood alone. Contributing to this small social world is the fact that most women tend to live in tiny apartments or dormitories with as many as 18 to a room, supplied by their employer and with strict curfews, or with a relative, often an uncle or older sibling who serve as surrogate parents. Their circumscribed place, dictated by work and home, is compounded by spatial and discursive power relations that construct the city as a dangerous, foreign place due to their position as women and outsiders, marked by their accent, their build, and their mannerisms.

198

The question thus arises do cell phones enable migrant women to expand their social networks beyond the small social world they occupy in the city? Of particular interest here is whether mobile phones allow them to surpass the constraints of space, gender, and social class and build their social capital as well as produce and cultivate guanxi, which, in following Kipnis, is also constitutive of producing oneself. The limited and limiting material circumstances of migrant women also raise the issue of how a technology as personal as the mobile phone might foster autonomy through allowing for immobile mobility, the socio-techno means of transcending rigid spatial or temporal boundaries in interpersonal relationships and for self-expression. One way I sought to understand the social networks of the women I knew was to view the content of their mobile phone address books. These were invariably filled with the names of current and previous coworkers, former classmates still at home or out laboring in other parts of China, and a few family members, usually siblings or cousins. In the instances where a woman had the phone number of a Beijing resident or someone from a different social class, such as an intellectual, it turned out to be their employer, a supervisor at work, or a staff member of one of the NGOs that serves Beijings migrant population (except in two cases of migrant women dating Beijing men).47 My initial conclusion was that the small social world reflected in their mobile phone meant that it was not expanding their social capital, at least not in a Bourdieuian understanding of the concept. Rather, it was reinforcing Bourdieus notion of social capital as exclusionary, serving to uphold distinct boundaries based on class and income, and thus maintaining inequality in society. Such a conclusion aligns with recent research

199

showing China to be an extremely socially stratified society, with clear distinctions made and boundaries maintained between different social strata.48 However, placed in the context of the Chinese patterns of relationship building discussed earlier, the content of the address books generates a different perspective. The egocentric nature of the Chinese concept of self means that while of course the individual has an inner reflexive psyche, the idea of someone existing outside of the social relationships in which he or she is part is not a dominant notion. Aside from family ties, the prerequisite for establishing a relationship is some sort of shared identity or personal experience. When women told me who was in their phone, they never just said friends (pengyou). Instead, they differentiated relationships by using the terms classmate (tongxue), colleague (tongshi), or someone from their hometown (tongxiang) in exactly the same manner that scholars who research guanxi in China have described. As Mayfair Yang explains, in Chinese the word tong, meaning same or shared, is used to designate a whole set of close personal relationships which serve as guanxi bases: person from the same native place (tongxiang), classmate (tongxue), and coworker or colleague (tongshi).49 Although some names in the address books were designated as those of friends and these could potentially overlap with classmates, colleagues, and so on, clearly the women in this study were using their mobile phones not only to keep in touch with friends and family, but also to build and maintain their guanxi bases. Their small social world thus also corresponds to the way villagers referred to their guanxi networks as their society or local world in Yans study discussed earlier. This local world reflected in their mobile phones was made up of those in their personal and reliable 200

zones and could be expanded to include those in their effective zone. This point was driven home to me once when I commented on the large number of friends a woman had in her mobile phone book and was told they were mostly ordinary friends (yiban pengyou), meaning they would fall within this latter zone. My point here is not to assess whether each name in the address books reflected an expressive or instrumental relationship, in other words one based on ganqing or solely based on renqing, for surely there could be a mixture of both even within a single relationship. Nor is it possible for me to comment on the outcome of each of these relationships whether they were used for incurring mutual obligation through favors and the like. What is important in light of the lengthy quote I cited by Zhang Xiumei above and similar stories that I heard in my interviews is that the mobile phone is a tool for migrant women not only to keep in touch with those they designate as friends, but also to build a network of strong and weak ties that potentially could be called upon in the future. The following conversation about the mobile phone diaries of Cui Yiping also illustrates this point: CW: This is a funny message. Who sent it to you? CY: He is my fellow villager (laoxiang). We met on the train coming back from Spring Festival. It was a long ride. CW: You mean you didnt know him before? CY: No, but we exchanged mobile numbers and now we keep in touch. I helped him get a job in the bar where I used to work. CW: That was nice of you. CY: Really? I dont know [laughs]. Clearly, a cell phone made it much easier for Cui Yiping and the young man she met on the train to remain in contact. As they were both from the same hometown, this natural affinity made it more likely for her to do him a favor. Though not close 201

friends, she could probably rely on his help as well when needed at some later point in time. Still, for the most part the people whose names were stored in their mobile phones were like them migrant workers, classmates, family members almost all with rural hukou, thereby affirming their identity as not Beijing people, as one of my informants termed it. While these women exercised their autonomy in maintaining and forging new voluntary relationships, these were circumscribed by both their local place of origin and their place as outsiders in Beijing. This is evidence once again that structural and cultural factors always exert their presence in how technology is adapted and used. The mobile phone in particular allows migrant women to expand their social networks in ways that would not be possible or at least would entail much greater effort without one. The phone, and for some the Internet, is part of their urban life and a medium for constructing an urban identity. At the same time, while established norms of sociality and relationship building may affirm their ruralness, possession of the phone and relationships managed through the phone create a space in between, where identity is neither urban nor rural, but is a fluid, hybrid mix that incorporates elements of both. Enriching Social Networks In addition to expanding their social networks, and perhaps more important to their immediate concerns, was the way mobile phones had become a key medium for migrant women to enrich their social relationships, and in this regard Wellmans notion of network capital is very relevant. For most of the women I knew, their long work hours and minimal free time meant they had little opportunity for face-to-face interactions with friends outside of colleagues. This situation contrasts both with their 202

lives in the village, where many felt bored and idle once they were no longer in school and when their labor wasnt needed in the fields, as well as with the lives of their urban counterparts, who although burdened with school and myriad extracurricular activities nonetheless have a social life due to these very activities. Even on days off a migrant woman might find it difficult to meet up with a friend who lives in another part of the city for several reasons. Unless an employer supplies housing in the city center, most migrants tend to live in enclaves on the outskirts of Beijing where rents are cheaper. Because Beijing is so large, crossing the city by bus can take two hours or more with traffic and transfers. After working for two weeks without a break, it is understandable that on a day off staying home and sleeping might be the preferred option, no matter how much one desires face-to-face sociality. Such temporal and spatial constraints, however, were overcome through the immobile mobility provided by the cell phone. In numerous interviews, it became clear that many women had friendships that were maintained almost strictly through their mobile phone rather than through face-to-face contact. This use of the mobile phone presents a striking contrast to the results of other mobile phone studies done among more affluent youth in developed countries. For example, Rich Ling cites a Europeanwide study that found that mobile voice calls and text messaging are nearly a proxy for face-to-face interaction with a persons social network.50 In other words, these three types of communication texting, calling, and speaking face-to-face tend to revolve around friends that live in the same local area. He concludes that there is immediacy in mobile interactions. They are not used to maintain the more remote social relations.51

203

Scholars in other western European countries and urban Japan have reached similar conclusions. 52 In his research among young people in Seoul, Korea, Kyongwoon Yoon found that the mobile phone was often a supportive communication technology used with relationships that are primarily sustained through face-to-face contact.53 In my study, however, the mobile phone emerged as what I call an expansive communication tool, used not only for maintaining ties with friends who are now spread all over China, but also with those who, although in the same city, are nonetheless geographically unreachable. The mobile phone thus afforded the migrant women in this study a form of immobile mobility, a virtual means of traversing the boundaries of long work schedules, cloistered living situations, and far distances in order sustain their social networks. Of course, several women I knew did send sporadic text messages to colleagues with whom they interacted in person on a regular basis, but they often dismissed these messages as merely for fun (wan). On the other hand, for many women, those with whom they were emotionally close (or to use Yans terms, those in their personal core and in their reliable zone) were often not in Beijing; in fact many women I knew, especially those that worked in the marketplaces, told me they did not have friends in Beijing though they might have a sibling. The major exceptions were among women involved in an organization, such as the Migrant Womens Club or Facilitator, that sponsored activities specifically designed to encourage social interaction and friendship building among rural migrants in the city. Clearly these organizations serve a crucial role in enabling migrants to expand and enrich their social or network capital.

204

Since migrant women have so little time off, the mobile phone was only occasionally used for micro-coordination, Ling and Yttris expression for the way mobile phones enable flexibility and mid-course adjustment in scheduling and transportation.54 More often it was a medium for hyper-coordination, or social grooming through chatting but especially through sending short text messages.55 As discussed in chapter one, such expressive messaging, in particular mobile gift giving or digital gifting, has been noted by many scholars researching mobile phone use among youth in various countries. These reciprocal exchanges work to maintain a single relationship or to solidify the identity of the group among which they are shared. These messages often contain minimal content asking if one is still at work or school, how one is doing, etc. or are chain messages. All of the migrant women in my study sent both of these types of messages. Like their peers in other countries, in sending such messages they followed norms of reciprocity and expressed affection to those in their in-group. Pre-written Text Messages with Chinese Characteristics As discussed in chapter two, pre-written text messages are widely available in China and can be copied from inexpensive books or downloaded from the Internet. The contents of these messages are usually jokes, riddles, holiday greetings, and erotica, which are written by employees of several Internet portals in China (such as Sina and Sohu). None of the women I knew downloaded or copied such messages; instead, they passed on those that were sent to them. Migrant womens heavy usage of pre-written messages presents certain characteristics perhaps unique to their particular socio205

cultural context. I have already addressed the first characteristic in chapter three; that is, many women rely on prewritten messages to compensate for low literacy levels (especially difficulty with inputting characters). Here I discuss the second characteristic, which is the content of these types of messages, including how they sometimes contain guanxi principles, the frequency with which they express longing or escape, and the way they work to solidify rural-urban difference. As mentioned earlier, guanxi ties are often established on the basis of a shared identity. Kwang-kuo Hwang has therefore stated that when a person seeks to establish guanxi with someone they do not know, they must altercast the relationship; in other words, they need to find a link where there formerly was none. For this reason, interpersonal fatalism is a common practice, where a new relationship is interpreted as one that was meant to be because two people have a natural affinity (yuan).56 If both sides view their meeting as predestined, then they are likely to incorporate one another into their personal social web. The following message demonstrates this idea of the role of fate or destiny (yuanfen) in bringing two people together: Having many friends is meaningless. If you have one really close friend, they are worth hundreds of others. You cannot judge the value of your friendship based on how long youve known each other. If you have a good friend, and you spend one day together, the friendship may last for one thousand years. You cannot choose the timing to make a friend. If you can make a really good friend they will help you your whole life. Having you as a friend is fate, luck, and a blessing. Interestingly, this message was sent by a young woman to a young male migrant worker from another province that she had met as they shared the bulk of a 17-hour train ride home during Spring Festival. As depicted in the message, they had only spent this one 206

time together, but they continued to cultivate their relationship (which was strictly based on friendship according to the young woman) via the mobile phone, feeling that it was fate that they had met. The importance placed on invoking destiny in establishing relationships was borne out several times in my interactions with the women in my study. We did not share bonds of locale, school, work, or experience, but once we had forged a relationship many women insisted it was destiny that we had met. In addition to messages expressing fate or destiny, women also sent a large number of messages conveying desire for a simpler existence or longing for a better place. Sometimes they composed these on their own, for example, short exchanges with a classmate reminiscing on their schooldays. Other times they sent pre-written messages that were often humorous, as the following text that Cui Yiping, who worked in a hair salon, sent to her friends on International Childrens Day: Say happy holiday to those friends who are young but are sophisticated in mind. Lets free ourselves and break the rules. Dont keep everything inside. I know its very hard to behave like an adult. The holiday is coming. If you want to suck your thumb, suck your thumb. If you want to wet your bed, then wet your bed. If anyone tries to stop you, then bite him! This message is playful in tone and is meant to be a release from the hard work and drudgery that many women must endure in the city. Sometimes women sent silly pictures that they had received instead of messages. Other messages, however, expressed extreme longing or conjured up images of flying away or forgetting worries. Such themes again show the mobile phones use for achieving immobile mobility and for escaping, even if for a fleeting moment, from the realities of daily life. In this way, text messages can become like the lyrics of a song, which listeners use both to construct 207

themselves and to mediate between their private inner selves and the greater social world. Such expressions of longing were also present in the large number of pre-written messages sent that were extremely sentimental and used very formal language (in the Chinese). For example, Chen Yuhua, a young waitress in Beijing, shared this message that she had forwarded to a friend from her hometown who was laboring (dagong) in Inner Mongolia: A peony is the most beautiful flower. Friends are closest to each other. When we became friends, we didnt care about money. We only cared about our hearts. After flowing thousands of miles, water will return to the sea. Even now we are thousands of miles away from each other but our friendship will last forever. The roots of big trees are connected; the hearts of good friends are connected as well. I wish you good luck always. Chen Yuhua said she sent this message because she knew this particular friend was tired and homesick, and she wanted to express her warm feelings to him. Calling was too expensive, so when she received this message she passed it along. She insisted the message did not have any deep meaning; she merely liked the sentiment. In contrast to Chen, during the course of my fieldwork it became evident that among educated urbanites there was a feeling that an urban person would never send this type of message or others that were similar, the reason being that they were too flowery and thus reflected a low level of education. Somewhat paradoxically, the extreme formality of the language made it especially subject to the critique that the sender was trying to hard. Another side of immobile mobility thus presents itself. As much as mobile phones allow for the transcendence of material constraints and discursive possibilities, they also 208

potentially reinforce these. Disparagement of these types of text messages was not done maliciously; it was actually more of a matter-of-fact observation. Nevertheless, such an assessment manifests the same reification of urban/rural difference as the disdain expressed in the popular media for rural migrants tastes and fashions as course or vulgar.57 Obviously text messages are much more private than fashion and not usually subject to public critique, but there is a growing awareness in China that the bulk of prewritten messages are meant to cater to the tastes of lower social strata.58 Such segmentation of the market speaks volumes regarding the socially constructed nature of technology use, how power and discourse operate at the most seemingly mundane level, and that as much as mobile phones allow for inclusion, they also can perpetuate existing exclusions. Camera Phones and the Construction of Reality The sociality afforded by the mobile phone is only one aspect of the way it can be used to embed its user in a world that goes beyond spatial and temporal boundaries and thus enable what I call immobile mobility. A camera phone offers another dimension of the mobile phones ability to be used for simultaneously representing and coconstructing meaning and identity through the pictures one takes and stores. As Susan Sontag has written in On Photography, photographs in general offer an ethics of seeing.59 In other words, our worldview is reflected in our creation of and response to photographs of the extraordinary as well as the mundane. This ethics of seeing is amplified even further in the case of camera phones due to their extremely personal

209

nature. In the same way that mobile phones have been called an extension of the hand, one could argue that a camera phone offers an extension of the eye.60 In Nancy Van House and Marc Davis study of camera phone usage in the United States, they found, not surprisingly, that the camera phone was not only a memory device, but also an expressive device for users to assert their sensibility of the world around them.61 Daisuke Okabe and Mizuko Ito, researching on camera phones in Japan, also noted that people use camera phones spontaneously, snapping shots of interesting views or mundane objects that reflect the users viewpoint on daily life. These are then stored as a personal visual archive.62 Most participants in their study expressed pleasure in being able to collect photos that often only had meaning to themselves, and thus, according to Okabe and Ito, the camera phone was valuable as a resource for personal identity construction.63 In their research, Okabe and Ito stress that they rely on a situational framework that considers individual practices of technology use and how these are embedded in pre-existing social and cultural meaning systems and structures. They thus develop analytic categories of technosocial situations of camera phone use (e.g. personal archiving, intimate visual co-presence, peer-to-peer news) that are an attempt to move beyond approaches that view technological practices as emergent strictly through personal interaction or that seek to generate abstract categories which can transcend specific social and cultural contexts.64 In discussing the camera phone use of the migrant women in this study, I also insist that the particularities of their gender, class, and rural backgrounds, and how these determine their life conditions in Beijing, are integral to my analysis. This is not in 210

order to adhere strictly to Bourdieus theory that photographic tastes, as part of the larger realm of aesthetic dispositions, are constructed and limited by economic, social, and cultural capital, though this may often be true. Certainly many of the pictures captured by these women and stored in their phones did reflect their taste, yet these images also demonstrated creativity, expressiveness, and desire that went far beyond Bourdieus rather static notion of the connection between the working class and a functional aesthetic.65 In focusing on social and cultural context, one must also attend to the ideological and unconscious aspects of visual representation. Because pictures do not so much represent reality as construct reality, Victor Burgin has stated that all photographs are manipulative, and as such, are ideological. However, when he asserts that manipulation is the essence of photography, he does not mean that all pictures are instruments of deceit, nor is he referring only to production techniques employed in the studio (magnified tenfold in our digital era).66 Rather, he is drawing attention to the relationship between the viewer and the actual photo, and how this is never outside the social and cultural politics of representation, where complexes of signs create meaning just as much as they communicate it. Even the most seemingly mundane photos tell stories, the meanings of which are never fixed but always dependent on the context in which they are embedded.67 In the same way, pictures also draw on deep desires often below the level of consciousness. In Simon Watneys discussion of the institution of photography, he argues that modes of production and consumption of commercial photography adhere to dominant notions of gender, class, and race in how they tether meanings to images, and how both ideological and psychological factors are at play.68 211

He insists that looking at social influences in photography must be supplemented by discussions of desire and fantasy, and though his focus is on institutions, his analysis is relevant to my discussion, as will be shown below. As he states, Photographs are no more, and no less, than fragments of ideology, activated by the mechanism of fantasy and desire.69 The pictures stored in numerous migrant womens phones illuminate the importance of both the situated analysis of Okabe and Ito as well as the representational, ideological, and psychological aspects of photography that Sontag, Burgin, and Watney address. Women used photos to reflect as well as create a particular view of reality and constitute one aspect of their larger construction of social identity and personal meaning. In the following discussion, I will show how the relatively contained social world of many migrant women was often reflected in the pictures snapped and stored in their phones, how these pictures illustrated an extremely personal aesthetic, and how they were used to generate aspirations. In so doing, I extend my argument of the cell phone as a mechanism for generating immobile mobility to transcend economic and social marginalization. About half of the women I interviewed had camera phones, but this discussion is based primarily on extended interviews and participant observation among about a dozen women over the course of several months. As one would expect, all of the women stored a virtual version of their social world in their mobile phone. In almost every case where I asked to see a womans phone photos, the first pictures I viewed were of the migrant women themselves, usually in glamorous poses. In the study cited above by Van House and Davis, they also note that camera phone users snapped and 212

stored pictures of themselves for what the researchers called self presentation.70 And while this might seem somewhat narcissistic, China has different customs regarding the display of pictures of oneself. Urban residents prominently exhibit framed pictures of themselves (usually alone, in various poses taken at different locales) around the home. In the case of married couples, the photos are just as likely to be of the couple together as apart. At the workplace it is common for someone to have pictures of him or herself, framed and sitting atop their desk or unframed and placed below the glass covering their desk. Such self-presentation reflects pride in ones economic status and by extension ones level of consumption. Clearly, those at the lower end of the socioeconomic strata are not able to participate in this form of self-display. None of the migrant women I knew owned cameras, nor did they have the money to visit the professional photography studios that have cropped up all over Beijing in recent years. A camera phone clearly changes this situation and supplies them with one tool for constructing and evaluating their identity. Though they would frequently show me pictures of themselves and comment on how ugly or funny looking they were, they clearly took satisfaction in their appearance, which had usually changed significantly from the time of their arrival in the city to the time they were able to purchase a mobile phone. Self portraits were not only contained inside the phone; many women had stickers of pictures of themselves (alone or with a colleague) affixed to their phone via the sticker clubs that can be found in stores all over Beijing. In addition to the self-display found in the phone, the most commonly stored pictures were of colleagues and family members as well as fictive kin (close friends 213

addressed by kinship terms, such as big sister). The pictures of colleagues were invariably taken at the workplace or in a dormitory and rarely at another location in Beijing, such as Tiananmen Square or another famous site. In some cases, women who had cultivated good relationships (guanxi) with their boss often had pictures of them in their phone. Some even had pictures of a bosses spouse or child, again taken at the workplace. This could be understood as revealing that, contrary to most reports about Chinas migrants, not all feel that they are exploited or harbor ill feelings towards their employer. Zhang Xiumei, who worked as a greeter at a photography studio, had several pictures in her phone of her boss decked out in fashionable clothing. When I asked her why, she told met that she liked her boss and that she was a good person (hao ren). Other women may attempt to cultivate guanxi with bosses by taking pictures and so forth, and in so doing improve their position at work, but the women I knew who clearly did not like their employers did not have pictures of them in their phones. Interestingly, when women had photos of family members in their phones, these tended to be of siblings, nephews, or cousins. In other words, womens social world, as it was reflected in their phones, was primarily oriented toward their peer group and the younger generation. Even when women went home for Spring Festival, they returned with pictures of cousins, siblings, perhaps an uncle, and the family dog, but usually not parents. Some women told me their parents did not like to have their picture taken, embarrassed at their rustic appearance. Others said they hadnt thought about taking a picture of their parents. The pictures in the phone supported those ties that were primarily of their generation in the same way as text messaging.

214

Much of the work that has been done on mobile phone images stresses the contrast between conventional cameras that are most often used to preserve special memories, and mobile phone pictures, which are usually of the spontaneous or the ordinary and mundane.71 However, when a population does not have conventional cameras, we cannot really make such a distinction. Rare trips to a park or other sightseeing destination in Beijing, birthday celebrations, and annual trips home were all captured in the phone. Most of their pictures, however, revealed their small social world, yet they also served as another means of constructing a hybrid rural-urban identity, displayed and created through self-presentation, new networks of sociality, and virtual memories of absent loved ones. While the overwhelming ordinariness displayed in the majority of migrant womens photos was analogous to the ordinariness of their lives, women also used their phones to transcend the limits of their world in several ways. One method was by asserting their sense of beauty and aesthetics through their phones, often in distinct contrast to the setting in which they found themselves in Beijing. Several women used their phones to snap pictures of something they considered naturally beautiful, such as a flower in the courtyard outside their dormitory, a favorite old tree or the blue sky in their hometown, or even fresh fruit. These pictures were kept as a small defense against the alienating urban jungle of modern Beijing. The virtual sanctuary enabled by the phone as recourse to feelings of anomie is exemplified in Li Yuns explanation of some of the pictures in her phone. She had been in Beijing about a year and worked everyday, 10 hours a day in one of the large markets catering to foreigners. She did not particularly care for the city but wanted the experience and the income afforded by 215

migration. Of the approximately 50 pictures she had in her phone, about one third were of nature. As I viewed her pictures we had the following conversation: CW: Where did you take this picture [of a flower]? LY: Outside my apartment. Isnt it nice? CW: Yes, it is. LY: Not like here [the crowded market]. CW: Yes, not like here. What is this? LY: Cherry tomatoes! Cant you tell? They are freshly washed. CW: Oh, thats why they are glittering. Why did you take this picture? LY: Because they are pretty, dont you think? CW: Yes, they are pretty.72 When I told Li Yun that I had never thought about taking a picture of vegetables, she laughed and repeated that they were pretty, asserting her sense of aesthetics and showing the power of the camera phone for expressing ones personal viewpoint.73 This personal aesthetic was also evident in her reason for keeping a picture of an old tree at home in her phone. For her, the beauty of the tree was important, yet the tree also served as a precious memory of home and embodied a longing and desire for a place, surely idealized, far from Li Yuns current circumstance. I look at this tree, she told me, when I miss my home (xiang jia). Susan Sontag has said that photographs lay claim to another reality.74 Sontag is referring to the power of images in museums, in books, in the media to sweep away viewers to another world, but what is equally important is the way ordinary people take pictures to express desires and aspirations beyond their everyday lives, as did many of the women I knew. Perhaps nowhere was this more profoundly evident than in something that I came across numerous times, and this was pictures of pictures that were stored in the phone. For example, there were images of famous historic sites or of 216

natural beauty such as a field of lilies that had been captured from books or magazines. In such pictures, aesthetics merged with aspirations, and again reflected a transcendent immobile mobility afforded by the mobile phone. In essence, the phone was used to make postcards of the extraordinary, not as a treasured memory of a real encounter or journey, but to virtually and vicariously experience a place and a possibility out of reach. If having an experience has been equated with taking a picture as documentation, then perhaps we can say that the opposite is true: photographs are not necessarily experience captured,75 rather they capture experience desired. This was also evident in the pictures of designer watches sold daily but never to be bought and of fashion models or of a favorite actor on the TV screen, captured in this manner since downloading from the Internet was either technically or economically unfeasible. Many women showed me such pictures without embarrassment but instead with pride in their ability to circumvent the limitations of their own lives. For example, on one occasion I was sitting with a friend at her clothing stall and was looking at the new photos she had stored in her phone. After scrolling through pictures of the clothes that she was selling, I eventually came across one that looked like Japanese cherry blossoms. When I asked her with surprise where she had gone to be able to take such a picture, she laughed, told me it was a picture of a picture, and then said with delight, You couldnt tell, could you? And the fact was, I couldnt. There are certainly several possible reactions to this aspect of camera phone usage by these women. It could be viewed with an element of pathos the pictures of pictures are a material and psychological mirror image of the pitiful (hen kelian) migrant woman and her tiny social world. Or, following Bourdieu, we may simply see this 217

practice as representative of a migrant womans habitus a reflection of her lifestyle, tastes, class, and education. As mentioned earlier, the pictures of pictures are clearly a personal and portable aesthetic, captured and displayed in one of the few spaces that a migrant woman can actually call her own. Yet, such images are not merely reflections of a functional aesthetic, a term that ignores deeper levels of yearning and desire that go beyond static class-circumscribed notions of taste and aspirations. Perhaps such an engagement with simulacrum is evidence for Baudrillards contention that the postmodern world is one in which we dwell in the realm of the hyperreal, where the distinction between simulation and the real implodes and we are left with nothing but surfaces without depth and copies without originals.76 While Baudrillard certainly overstates his case, he nonetheless calls attention to the problem of according representation the status of allowing access to the real. Migrant womens representational practices, as illuminated by their deployment of their camera phones, show that as much as images reflect reality they also construct reality as the viewer would have it seen or imagined. With images of cherry blossoms or Gucci watches, women are inserting themselves into the realm of that which they desire and to which they aspire. Such desire is illustrated in the pictures of Guo Yanmin, a young woman from an extremely impoverished village in Gansu province. Inside her phone, in the midst of photos of her cousin and colleagues were also images of flowers and trees that she had taken at a small park near her dorm, where she lived in a windowless basement. As I looked at her photos we had the following conversation: GY: Look at this picture. CW: Its an airplane. Where did you take it? 218

GY: It was landing at the Beijing airport. I could see it from outside my dorm. I had never seen a plane before. CW: Really? GY: No, only on television. CW: Oh. GY: Thats how you came to China, right? CW: Yes. GY: I envy you [plural (nimen)].77 My status as a foreign scholar and my location in a class (note her use of the plural form of you) with access to conveniences and privileges beyond the reach of all of the women involved in my research certainly are driven home in this illustration. It also explains beyond any description I could offer the delicate balancing act that played out in all of my encounters with migrant women between attempting to relate to them on their level and knowing that there were insurmountable cultural and social barriers that would remain, no matter how close we became. Such issues, while extremely significant, have been addressed in the first chapter and are not my reason for highlighting this exchange. Instead, the images of flowers, blue sky, high end sports shoes, airplanes and the like that were snapped and stored in womens phones reveal the ideological and psychological functions of images mentioned earlier. Images are manipulative in that they place the viewer in some sort of relationship, whether it be longing for a home far away and far removed culturally and socially, or desiring the trappings to which consumer society and the ideological underpinnings of urban modernity dictate one should be entitled. More importantly, I am arguing that such images also demonstrate young migrant womens ability to imagine a world beyond their current situation, and as such, new possibilities for transcending spatial and economic limitations, certainly a first step in 219

individual agency and resistance to inequitable structural forces. This clearly was the case with a young hair stylist I knew in Beijing. She could not afford a camera so she used her mobile phone to take pictures of styles that she liked that she saw in magazines. She also used her phone to archive the haircuts that she had done that she was particularly proud of, and she was keeping these both to chart her own development as a stylist and as a sort of virtual resume to secure a better job in the future. The same woman who showed me the picture of the cherry blossoms had snapped photos of some of the fashions that she sold in her stall as part of her preparation for eventually opening up her own clothing boutique back home. These illustrations attest to the creativity used by migrant women in deploying their mobile phones to expand the realm of possibility in their lives, and to embrace an immobile mobility that encompasses new modes of identity, autonomy, and aspirations. Mobile Phones and Intimate Relationships In this final section, I will discuss one more connection between new communication technologies and migrant womens identity and autonomy, and this is in the realm of dating and intimacy. To communicate the significance of the way mobile phones are shaping migrant womens intimate relationships, it is first necessary to describe briefly the historical context of marital arrangements in China as well as how contemporary urban and rural practices differ. Marriage Customs in China Traditionally in China, marriages were arranged by parents as a mechanism for security, control, and maintenance of the family line. It was not uncommon for a bride 220

and groom to have their first meeting on their wedding day, and children and even the unborn could be betrothed. While such customs came under attack in urban areas in the early 20th century under the influence of the May Fourth Movement, they nevertheless remained strong in the countryside.78 Thus, one of the first things the CCP did upon coming to power was to institute the Marriage Law of 1950, which prohibited arranged marriages, child betrothal, the buying and selling of women, and interference in marital choice by a third party. Despite the updating of the law in 1980 (and 2001) and the governments numerous propaganda campaigns to publicize and enforce the freedom of marriage, contemporary rural marriage practices vary greatly by region. Arranged marriages, selling daughters for marriage, and even child betrothal have reappeared in certain areas in the reform era.79 At the least, in many rural areas young women (and men) are almost always expected to follow the wishes of their immediate families when choosing a spouse, although to what degree their marriages are arranged or free choice depends on a number of factors, including the specific region, the wealth and status of the family, the age of the couple, and so on.80 When economic cooperation among members of peasant households is stressed and marriage is seen as a significant factor in the household economy, young people may be able to choose their spouses, yet go-betweens are often used to connect families with children of marital age, and members of the kin group take part in marriage negotiations.81 To illuminate in more detail such regional rural differences, once again the work of Andrew Kipnis and Yan Yunxiang is useful. Kipnis found that although in common parlance rural marriages are often described as free love (ziyou lianai), young adults he encountered disagreed, knowing full well that their urban counterparts often really 221

did find their spouse apart from their parents interference. As Kipnis states, Engagement plans usually were well worked out by the time young people were given a chance to meet, and considerable pressure was brought upon the young couple to accept the marriage.82 Still, even if rural young adults wanted to find a spouse on their own, it was almost impossible due to societal constraints, and therefore most, according to Kipnis, were grateful their parents had arranged a marriage for them. Sulamith Potter and Jack Potter, researching in a rural area in southern China in the eighties, also note the difficulty rural young people have in meeting potential spouses due to their sex segregated lives.83 Like Kipnis, they observed the predominant role of parents (specifically mothers) in finding suitable mates for their children, the absence of any type of courtship rituals, and the business-like nature of marital agreements.84 On the other hand, Yan, in his studies spanning from 1989 to 1999, shows that the particular character of the village he studied allowed young people ample opportunity to socialize, and he stresses the increasing prevalence of personal choice and mutual affection in young couples marital decisions.85 For example, of 112 marriages that male villagers entered into between 1990 and 1999, about one third (40) were freechoice.86 Approximately two thirds were made by introduction on the part of a matchmaker, relative, or friend, and in three quarters of these marriages the couple stated that they were dominant in the decision-making (a figure that showed little change compared to marriages of villagers in the 1970s and 1980s).87 Significantly, 30 percent of the free-choice marriages of the 1990s were between couples that had met while away from the village laboring, in other words, they were migrant workers. In all cases, parental approval of the marriage remained important. 222

Interestingly, in Kipnis and Yans observations of marriage practices in the rural villages they studied, they each found that once the actual marriage preparations were underway, the brides family often had the upper hand in negotiations, though they cite different reasons for this phenomenon. To Kipnis it is due to the sex ratio imbalance so prevalent in Chinas rural areas.88 Yan, on the other hand, discusses how during engagement ceremonies betrothal gifts from the grooms family are converted to cash, called ganzhe or converted bridewealth, and given directly to the bride.89 Because the bride has a large role in negotiating the amount of this cash gift, Yan argues that this not only gives the couple more agency in marriage transactions (since the bride is bargaining for herself as well as for the future of her conjugal family), but also gives the bride more power since she might save some of the money to make investments later, for example through loaning out a portion and collecting interest on it.90 While Yan also emphasizes how the couples concern with establishing their own family unit apart from the grooms family is a clear sign of the decline of patriarchy, he acknowledges that the negotiations for the ganzhe that the bride undertakes are not done for her own gain, but for her and her husband.91 Though he highlights the relative autonomy of the couple and argues for the womans increased agency through negotiating and receiving the ganzhe, the fact that she is doing this for the sake of her marital financial security somewhat negates this last part of his argument. I cite the work of Yan, Kipnis, and the Potters to illustrate that completely free choice marriages in the western sense are not customary practice in Chinas rural areas. Though Yan argues for the autonomy of rural couples in contemporary China, the detail he presents of the extensive parental involvement on both the bride and grooms 223

side reveals that rural parents have a large say in their childrens marital choices. Here I should also point out that even in Chinas urban areas, though arranged marriages are nonexistent, some type of intermediary is also quite frequently a factor in marital arrangements, though this is more often than not a friend or relative of the same generation rather than a parent.92 For example, in Martin King Whytes study of marriage patterns in Chengdu, he found that in marriages that took place between 1977 and 1987, 57 percent of respondents (all female) said their marriage was completely individual choice, 11 to 43 percent (depending on factor used) indicated some type of parental involvement, 60 percent said they were introduced to their husband, and 17 percent of these said their parents provided the introduction.93 In a very recent survey of marriage patterns in China, only about 30 percent of urban couples that had married after 1990 met without the aid of some type of intermediary.94 Perhaps Nancy Riley has most clearly shown the difference in rural and urban marital patterns through her analysis of extensive survey data gathered from six provinces on the marital patterns of married urban and rural women. While well over half of the Beijing women said they had arranged their own marriage, in the rural areas of the other five provinces only about one quarter of the women stated that they chose their own husband.95 While women in the younger cohort (aged 25-29) in all provinces were less likely to have an arranged marriage, those from the poorest regions were more apt to state that their parents alone chose their husband. In general, although parents were still more likely than not to be involved in some way in their childrens marriage decisions, parental introductions and influence were far more important in rural areas.96

224

Migrant Women and the Marriage Dilemma In China despite regional differences and in the midst of all of the changes of the last several decades, marriage has remained a near universal institution and an important milestone in a young adults life. This is especially true for young rural women who, due to local custom, tend to marry and bear children at a younger age than their urban counterparts.97 Nearly every woman I knew who was 20 or older (and some that were younger) told me that their female friends in their home village were already married and that many had already had children. Sun Zhixin, who was 24 and had been in Beijing for six years working at a variety of jobs, was typical in her response when I asked her how her life would be different if she had never come to Beijing: It would be very different. I would be married by now and have a child. Many of my friends their whole life is being a mother. I am definitely different from them. I dont want to live that kind of life because that kind of life, if I have to take care of kids and cook, Im not used to it. I definitely prefer to go to work.98 A young rural womens sojourn to the city means that she is likely to delay marriage compared to her rural peers.99 Thus, as discussed in chapter two, the phenomenon of rural-to-urban migration by young women has troubled traditional Chinese notions regarding unmarried womens chastity and parental authority in marriage. Postponing marriage or evading an unwelcome arranged marriage are frequently cited by rural women as reasons for migration. Unlike males who often migrate after they are married, one third to nearly half of all female migrants leave their home to work in the city once they have completed (or partially completed) middle school but before they are old enough to marry.100 Upon reaching marriageable age they 225

are expected to return home to wed and start a family. However, those who stay longer must face the reality that when they eventually go back home in their mid-to-late twenties they are already considered old maids. For this reason, in the past most migrant women have returned to their village after a brief sojourn in the city.101 Still, there has been an increasing trend towards migrant women prolonging their stay in urban areas and possibly never returning home. This has caused some scholars and government officials to express concern about what this means not only for urban stability, but also for the welfare of these women.102 Some women harbor hopes of changing their fate by marrying an urban resident, though the odds of this are slim given the constraints on their associations with urban men, the negative stereotypes urbanites have of female migrants, differences in perceived degree of status and culture, and the fact that proportionally migrant women outnumber single urban men in their age group.103 Furthermore, there is a widespread perception that no good urban male would want to marry a migrant and that if he did, the difference in social status would lead to abuse of his wife.104 In cases where dagongmei have married Beijing men, there are further difficulties brought on by the restrictions on legal residence, housing, family planning, and, if they have a child, the childs education.105 At the same time, newly-urbanized womens experience and increased knowledge of the world make them less tolerant of the male villagers back home. Their time in the city also causes their values to change, and they often feel there is too big a gap between themselves and the young males who never left the village who are their potential

226

marriage partners.106 Some also look down on male migrants, whom they perceive to be ignorant and narrow-minded. Liu Hong, a 24-year-old migrant woman whom I met early in my stay in Beijing, expressed her concerns about marriage to me one day as we walked around Beihai Park in the center of city. She explained that ideally she hoped to find a Beijing resident but she knew this wasnt very likely given her low level of knowledge (literally culture wenhua shuiping tai di) and her rural background. She did not want to marry any of the men in her village, for the reasons listed above, but she also expressed doubts about male migrants as well. If they had just arrived, she said, they were too backward and crude (tai tu) while those who had been in Beijing longer or were older were already married. Of course, her disparagement of the newly arrived male migrants shows how the powerful discourses of urban=modern, rural=backward are internalized and perpetuated by rural women and not just government and popular urban discourse, as others have noted in their fieldwork among migrant women in Beijing.107 Nevertheless, Liu Hongs anxiety about marriage and the possibility of finding a suitable partner were very real and weighed heavily upon her (though she also acknowledged that she recently had a few possibilities). Many of the women I knew expressed similar anxiety about this dilemma. As much as they wanted to stay in the city and find romantic love, the confluence of feelings of isolation, discrimination, parental pressure, and the reality of the household registration system made it likely that in the past most would have invariably returned home for marriage, often one in which their parents played a large role in the arrangements. Now, however, in China, as in other parts of the world, mobile phones 227

are enabling changes in how people establish and maintain intimate relationships. For populations whose material conditions and mobility are highly constrained, these changes can be dramatic. Dating and the Mobile Phone I have already elaborated on the small social circle occupied by most migrant women. Outside of colleagues or former classmates, their possibilities for meeting a significant other are severely limited. Organizations like the Migrant Womens Club and Facilitator try to create opportunities for male and female migrants to socialize (as will be discussed further below), but only a small number of the women in my study were involved in such organizations. Now, some migrant women, just like their urban counterparts, meet future boyfriends online. Others use their mobile phone to place or respond to a classified ad in a magazine, usually one geared towards migrants, such as Dagong (Laboring). While the practice of young migrants in the city seeking pen pals (a euphemism for a boyfriend or girlfriend) through classified ads is not something novel, the mobile phone brings a whole new dimension to the potential frequency and intimacy of contact once a relationship is established. Still, I only met one woman who said a friend of hers used her mobile phone to reply to an ad in a magazine, and no one I knew acknowledged ever responding to a complete stranger who sent a flirtatious text message, as some of the interviewees in Pui-lam Law and Yinni Pengs study among factory workers in southern China did.108 This is not to say intimate or even sexually explicit messages were not sent, however. Obviously a mobile phone is a very personal possession used for personal expression. Of significance here is the way the mobile phone via text messaging allows 228

young rural migrants to voice feelings they otherwise might not either in a voice call or a written letter due to cultural norms of what is considered appropriate and a discursive context which produces the social fact that rural women dont know how to talk (buneng jianghua).109 Text messaging allows greater freedom possibly due to the asynchronous somewhat disembodied nature of a text, but also through migrants use of pre-written messages.110 In particular, love messages allow migrant women to explore sexual identities usually repressed in their home village, where cultural and social norms governing what a filial daughter should and should not do remain strong. These types of messages run the gamut from the cute to the mildly erotic, as the following two examples illustrate: Weather report: From tonight to tomorrow morning, I miss you a little. Its expected that this condition will change into continuous missing by the afternoon. Due to the effect of this low mood, it will change into a storm of missing by sunset. The temperature of your feelings will drop to five degrees (Celsius). Its forecasted that this kind of weather will last until I meet you again. People often ask where paradise is. In fact, as long as your beloved is lying beside you and caressing you, you are in paradise. Many of the women in my study used pre-written messages frequently with friends as well as boyfriends (as mentioned earlier), but they insisted the latter type of message above was more the domain of males than females.111 As I discussed these types of text messages one day with a handful of women at one of the NGOs for migrant workers in Beijing, Wang Xiaoqi clearly articulated the gendered differences in texting, stating, We dont send messages like that, referring to the second message, to which all her friends nodded in agreement. When I asked if they liked to receive them 229

from a boyfriend, she laughed and said, Sure (keyi). Wang Xiaoqi and the other womens notions of the appropriateness of sending and receiving erotic text messages, demarcated along clearly gendered lines, exemplify once again the disciplinary practices of femininity regulating migrant womens speech and behavior, as discussed in chapter three. The pervasiveness of such discipline is shown through its power to infiltrate even such a private communication device as a mobile phone. This certainly does not mean that other migrant women might disagree with Wang Xiaoqis pronouncement or even that she and her friends never send such messages. Yet, it is more evidence that as much as new communication technologies enable the exploration of sexual identity, they also perpetuate forms of power that regulate proper gender behavior. I should clarify that this example should not be interpreted as reifying a notion of rural women as traditional chaste females in contrast to their modern urban counterparts. Several studies have shown a high incidence of premarital sex and cohabitation among migrants in the city and even among unmarried couples in certain rural areas, though cohabitation usually occurs once a couple is engaged.112 Evidence from my own fieldwork concurs with such findings. Moreover, conservative sexual attitudes expressed by urban women versus urban men are also a common finding in research on sexuality in China, despite a rash of sexually explicit storytelling by young urban women (e.g. Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui and Muzi Meis sex blog) that has received attention by the popular as well as the academic press.113 Migration thus enables new freedoms in exploring identity and relationships, as do new communication technologies; however, urban life does not completely erase the 230

norms that rural-to-urban migrant women abide by, nor does technology usher in sweeping changes in peoples values and practices. For this reason, more often than not, when it came to dating relationships and mobile phones, what I observed was a mixing of traditional and technological. In the remainder of this chapter I will relate three stories that illustrate this blending of culture and communication tools. Each story is slightly different, but together they form a portrait of the way socio-techno practices arise within existing social and cultural meanings and structures. Chen Weiwei was one of several women I knew at a local hair salon. She had come from a village in Hebei province and had been in Beijing for about a year, and as with all of the other women I knew, as soon as she could she bought her first mobile phone. Shortly thereafter a relative at home told her about a young man from a neighboring town and asked her if she wanted to be introduced. In relating this story Chen Weiwei said, I figured, why not? With my work schedule it is nearly impossible to meet a friend [meaning boyfriend] in Beijing.114 An initial meeting was then arranged via web cam at an Internet caf, with Chen Weiwei in Beijing and the young man in Hebei. They chatted this way a couple of times, just to see what each other looked like and get a first impression. After a few meetings in this manner, they deemed each other suitable for a relationship, and due to the prohibitive costs of the Internet as well as the inconvenience of going to an Internet caf, all future dating took place from then on via the mobile phone, with text messages sent throughout the day, and long conversations until late into the night. When I interviewed Chen Weiwei, their relationship had been going on for four months, and when I last saw her, she was

231

counting down the days until her boyfriend would be in Beijing for their first face-toface visit. Chen Weiweis story illustrates several features of Chinese social relationships that have been discussed throughout this chapter, including the importance of a common identity in forging relationships (in this case a common province, which implies common experience, even if imagined), the role of intermediaries in potential marital arrangements, and the way rural couples often decide rather quickly on one anothers suitability after an initial meeting. At the same time, away from the prying eyes of parents, other relatives, and same-sex peer groups that serve to severely regulate behavior in rural areas, Chen Weiwei used her mobile phone to achieve a large degree of autonomy in pursuing an intimate relationship. On one occasion I heard one of her colleagues tease her that she was always with her boyfriend since she always had her cell phone on her body even when she wasnt using it. Such a comment demonstrates once again that the immobile mobility achieved through the cell phone is as much a technological practice as a social and psychological mode of being and being in relationship to others and the world. The next story involves only mobile phones and an intermediary of sorts. At 25, Zhang Meili was one of the older migrant women I knew and she had also been in Beijing the longest (seven years). Like Liu Hong, she said that in the past she had worried about her future, primarily because she felt pressure from her family to get married so that villagers would not gossip about her being a shameful woman. Single migrant women who remain out to work beyond the customary marriage age are often the target of such gossip in their home villages, the assumption being that their reason 232

for remaining in the city is that they are either doing some sort of illicit job (such as sex work) or are engaging in a sexual affair, or both. When I met Zhang Meili, however, she already had a boyfriend, a young man she had met in a manner that illustrates once again the particularities of Chinese culture as well as the constraints and possibilities of the often substandard technology used by rural-to-urban migrants. Zhang Meili had a friend, who I will call Sun Li, who was getting married and several months earlier had had to return to her hometown in Sichuan province for some preparations. Because this friend had a Little Smart phone, a less expensive mobile phone with limited mobility (it only worked in Beijing), she asked Zhang Meili if they could temporarily swap phones. Such borrowing and loaning of phones was a common phenomenon among the migrant women I knew in Beijing and was quite different from the co-present sharing of mobile phones observed among youth in other settings.115 If someone in their immediate guanxi network did not have a phone (because they couldn't afford one or the one they had broke, got stolen, or couldn't be used for some reason), they would swap or loan phones without hesitation. There were numerous instances where I sent text messages to migrant women friends only to have a reply come from a sibling explaining their temporary use of the phone or to have the friend reply to my message using a phone other than their own (friends or relatives who borrowed the phone were always dutiful in passing on messages). This swapping/lending/borrowing of phones reflects not only the often quite practical use of mobile phones by migrant women, but also the cultural norms of obligation and reciprocity explained earlier in this chapter. As Zhang Meili said when I asked her about how she felt parting with her

233

phone, she replied, It doesnt matter. Its what I should do (Mei guanxi, shi wo yinggai de). Thus, Zhang Meili traded phones with Sun Li as a matter of course, and she explained the rest of her story as follows: Sun Lis fianc was in the army and he had a friend, Zhao, who had just bought his first mobile phone. Zhao complained that he had no one with whom to exchange messages, so Sun Lis fianc told him to contact her, maybe she could help. Well, when Zhao finally sent a message, Sun Li was in Sichuan and I had her phone. When I received his text asking for help finding a friend, I was kind of interested, you know [laughs]. So, I asked him who he was, how he knew Sun Li, and so on. I thought his answers were acceptable, so I told him we could be friends. After that we started exchanging messages on a daily basis, then several times a day, and of course we called each other, too.116 Though this relationship was initiated through technology, it eventually incorporated more traditional forms of courtship, as Zhang Meili and her friend also wrote each other letters and mailed some photos. I had to make sure he looked alright, she told me. After an initial period of getting acquainted, just like Chen Weiwei and her boyfriend, they eventually started dating solely through the mobile phone, until they met face to face six months later. Zhang Meili explained that army regulations did not allow much leave time so they had actually only seen each other a handful of times in the nine months they had been dating. While I was in Beijing Zhang Meilis mother visited in order to meet (and approve of) her boyfriend. They are now engaged. In Chen Weiweis story, a relative plays the traditional role of an intermediary, and technology allows for spatial constraints to be mediated, though not erased entirely. While the latter is also true in Zhang Meilis case, technology itself serves as the intermediary through a confluence of several factors. Chinese norms of friendship based 234

on reciprocity and obligation dictate that Zhang Meili and Sun Li swap phones. Sun Lis phone becomes an intermediary only because Zhaos text message that arrives through it is not perceived by Zhang Meili as coming from an anonymous stranger, but by someone with whom Sun Lis fianc must have good guanxi. Thus, Zhang Meili could feel comfortable in responding to Zhaos messages. Aside from these cultural factors, structural and economic factors are also significant. No one in China has a Little Smart phone if they can afford a standard mobile phone. The Little Smarts reception quality is often poor, and they are inconvenient due to limited range, which is why Zhang Meili and Sun Li traded phones in the first place. Certainly people might swap phones for a number of reasons, but this particular story illustrates how cultural, social, and economic factors give rise to contingencies that are particular to the lives of Chinas migrant workers. In the third story I will tell, an organizational intermediary appears in the form of the Migrant Womens Club in a manner not much different from the matchmaking role played by a church social or a speed-dating event in the U.S. However, technical and economic constraints faced by migrant women are once again evident in how this story unfolded. After my heart-to-heart talk with Liu Hong where she elaborated on the difficulties of finding a suitable partner because of her migration experience, I did not see her for a few months due to travel outside of Beijing and the Spring Festival holiday. I had sent her some text messages and tried to call her but could not reach her on her mobile phone. She had a terribly cheap phone that constantly dropped our calls, and her phone often ran out of power, so the fact that I could not get in touch with her and had not heard from her wasnt unusual. 235

Then, out of the blue one morning in early April she called me, but because she was not using her own phone, I didnt recognize the number. She also didnt introduce herself before she started talking, and the line was full of static. Through much background noise I heard a womans voice asking, Kaizhen (my Chinese name), since you are a musician, what is the best --- ? Her voice cut out, and I couldnt hear the last word, obviously key for me to make sense of the question. I asked the voice to repeat the question, having no idea who it was. Again, all I could hear was What is the best -- ? Sorry, but who is this? I finally asked. Its Liu Hong, she replied, slightly flabbergasted. As I embarrassedly tried to explain that I couldnt hear her clearly and didnt recognize the number, the line went dead. I tried to call back but got a message that the phone I was calling had no power and couldnt be connected. I sent a text message, trying to excuse my lack of recognition and understanding, but heard nothing. The phone call was definitely one of the more disastrous ones I had in China. About a week later I received the following message from an unknown number: My dear friends, today we formally registered for our marriage. These past few days at his home I have been full of happiness and am on good terms with his mother. Thank you for your blessings. The day after tomorrow we will return to Beijing. Liu Hong. I was stunned. How had my friend gone from anxiety to engagement in just two months? Once Liu Hong was back in Beijing I was able to hear her story. About five months earlier the Migrant Womens Club and some other organizations got together to host a singles party for migrants in Beijing. Liu Hong had gone to the party and ended up giving her cell number to a few of the males in attendance. One of them passed on her number to one of his friends named Wang. After the party, at first she received 236

several text messages from various young men, including Wang, which were just greetings and such, as she explained it. After a couple of months only Wang continued to keep in touch with her, so she decided to give him a call. Since he lived in Beijing, they met in person soon afterwards and started dating, mostly via cell phone due to their work schedules and distant living locations. During the Chinese New Year (in February) they had some time off to spend together and got engaged shortly thereafter. Liu Hong had been working in Beijing for nearly seven years, she had been involved with various organizations that helped migrant workers in the city, and she had a number of friends who could have introduced her to a potential boyfriend. However, with her long work hours, lack of a fixed-line phone, and rising standards of what she expected in a significant other, she had had difficulty finding a suitable partner, as described in my earlier conversation with her. I am not suggesting that a mobile phone was the determining factor in her eventual engagement, but the stream of text messages between her and the young man to whom she eventually became engaged were crucial to their getting to know one another when face-to-face meeting or frequent conversations on a fixed-line phone were difficult or impossible even though they lived in the same city. Immobile mobility is about overcoming distances of space and time no matter how large or small. It is interesting to note, however, that once Liu Hong became engaged, she got rid of her phone, telling me it was too expensive and she did not need it. But it wasnt just that the immobile mobility provided by the phone had served its purpose, though clearly it had. She also told me she was frustrated with the constant problems with her phone the poor reception, spotty coverage, limited battery life, and extra expense all 237

outweighed the benefits of the phone. Having been on the receiving end of such problems several times, and the feelings of disconnection generated by the dropped calls and dead battery, I empathized with her situation, even though it became harder for me to stay in touch with her. My research yielded numerous stories like those of Chen Weiwei, Zhang Meili, and Liu Hong, and even more, such as that of Sunny, who, after leaving her boyfriend in Shanghai to work as a vendor in one of Beijings large marketplaces, exchanged so many text messages and phone calls with him that the numbers on the keypad of her phone were worn thin and her monthly cell phone expenditure was about 350 yuan (about U.S. $45.00 and a third of her monthly income three to seven times more than any other woman I met spent on her phone). Or Wang Lili, who helped her boyfriend from her home village move to Beijing, but lived and worked a far distance from him because otherwise she feared they would fight and breakup. They sent text messages and called everyday, and she attributed their ability to maintain their relationship to these exchanges. From these two womens stories, we can see that a cell phone is both a conduit and an insulator, and in both instances allows a relationship to continue. In all of these cases, when I asked these women if such relationships would have been possible without a mobile phone they invariably said it was unlikely. It is not, as one of my American friends remarked upon hearing these stories, just like Match.com or some other online dating service. These women were not using new technology to cast a wide net in the hopes of finding a suitable partner. I did meet women who frequently went online to participate in chat rooms and met net friends (wangyou) who they eventually started dating, but these cases were few. The majority of the time, 238

as related above, when migrant women used technology to enhance their dating lives, there was still an intermediary, just as in traditional Chinese culture. Relationships were maintained primarily through text messaging supplemented by voice calls, with face-toface meeting occurring long after the relationship had been solidified via the mobile phone. The transportable, personal nature of the cell phone made this immobile mobility possible for women who grew up without a landline and who usually only had access to a public phone (or no phone at all) in their living quarters in Beijing. Here I should bring up the whole notion of a dating culture in China. In the Mao-era although the CCP did its best to discourage traditional arranged marriages and to take the authority for marital decisions away from parents, it still restricted and monitored young peoples mixed sex interactions before marriage, particularly in urban areas through schools and the institution of the work unit.117 In rural areas, the nature of village life, where everyone knows what everyone else is doing and the sex-segregated manner in which young men and women were raised, also meant the absence of dating. Even in the reform era until rather recently the government sought to inhibit a Western free love and dating culture that would threaten the spiritual civilization of Chinese state socialism.118 As discussed in chapter two, since the early-to-mid nineties, the state has retreated ever further from peoples private lives (except in the case of family planning) and sought a compromise legitimacy through guaranteeing people a relatively comfortable life. With market reforms and Chinas firm entrenchment in the global economy, in urban areas this has meant the onslaught of western fast-food chains, glitzy shopping malls, restaurants, bars, coffeehouses and the like. Whereas before the work unit and the 239

family home were the primary sites for socializing, as Deborah Davis has noted, the separation of the locations of production from locations of consumption has meant more opportunities for urban residents to relax and socialize outside of the realm of relatives and employers.119 For this same reason, Yan Yunxiangs studies of McDonalds in Beijing in the 1990s revealed it to be a popular place for young couples to pursue courtship.120 Thus, it is safe to say that a particular type of dating culture has arisen in urban China not only because of western influence, but also because of the growth of the private sector combined with young people having more discretionary income. Shopping malls, discos, and fast food restaurants all provide a place for adolescents and young adults to have a private life in public, away from the prying eyes of parents and other authority figures. However, migrant women in Beijing cannot access these public spaces because they clearly cannot afford them, and as mentioned above, their work schedules are too demanding. A mobile phone, particularly via text messaging offers this private life in a public space (their workplace, their dormitory) and affords them privacy perhaps heretofore impossible since they tend to live in communal spaces where, even if there were a phone, it would be difficult to use and conversations would be anything but private. It is not that a mobile phone is a revolutionary item, sweeping in and changing their lives, a la technological determinism. It is allowing for here-to-for desired but unrealizable freedom and autonomy in establishing and maintaining intimate relationships. This particular form of autonomy might be even greater for migrant women than their urban peers since most migrant women in Beijing are not living under

240

the watchful eye of a parent, although sometimes as mentioned earlier, a relative might play a parental role. Conclusion The socio-techno practices of rural-to-urban migrant women that I have outlined in this chapter reveal that the mobile phone has become integral to the way that these women navigate their lives in Beijing. At the most basic level, the mobile phone is a convenient device for keeping in touch with friends and family. It alleviates the hassle of scheduling phone calls and relying on public telephones. It has also become an important tool for building social or network capital, primarily as it is used to expand horizontal networks of sociality and develop potential guanxi bases. Kenneth Gergen has postulated that the cell phone challenges the western sense of the bounded self through emphasizing the relational and underscor(ing) the importance of connection as opposed to autonomy, looking outward rather than inward, toward network as opposed to self-sufficiency.121 In China, the mobile phone seems to supplement cultural notions of self and autonomy that have long been in place. Beyond its role as a transmission device, however, the cell phone performs a significant role in rituals of communication through such practices as digital gift giving, swapping phones, and virtual self-presentation through camera phone use. In this chapter, I have argued that most importantly, the immobile mobility accessed through the mobile phone allows migrant women to transcend myriad barriers of space, place, and time, to express aspirations and desires, and to experiment with their sexual identity. Several women in interviews told me that their phone had become like a part of 241

themselves, not an extension of the hand, but an essential aspect of their very being in the city. Without it they would feel lonely and disconnected. In other words, their mobile phone both reflected and constructed their sense of themselves in relation to the world. In this way, the phone was an instrument of power and agency. However, in closing I need to temper what might unintentionally appear as an argument that mobile phones are going to radically alter migrant womens material conditions. As mentioned earlier, despite the increasing number of rural women who are staying longer in the city, and perhaps permanently, the fact is that the majority still return home after a few years. Whether their experience in the city translates to similar autonomy back at home is still being debated.122 Even those who establish intimate relationships outside of parental approval are not always able to follow through on their plans for marriage. As Ma and Cheng found in their ethnographic fieldwork of migrant factory workers in southern China, many of the women who had boyfriends who worked in the same factory eventually returned to their villages for arranged marriages. They did this for reasons of self-protection, filial obligation, and financial security.123 In her fieldwork among domestic workers in Beijing Arianne Gaetano noted these same reasons for migrant womens eventual return home.124 Thus, while migrant women use mobile phones to transcend constrained circumstances in the city and to engage in certain forms of autonomy, the question remains as to the long-term effects of such autonomy. Furthermore, just as the mobile phone allows for inclusion in expanded and enriched social networks, at the same time these networks reinforce migrant womens identity as migrants, or not Beijing people. Their particular uses of prewritten 242

messages also potentially mark them as Others. It is not that the mobile phone itself creates exclusion, however. It is because socio-techno practices are practices that are always integrated into existing discursive contexts. I will explore this ambiguous nature of mobile phone use further in the next chapter.

243

Chapter Four Endnotes 1. Interview with Chen Xia, Beijing, March 29, 2007. 2. Interview with Zhang Xiumei, Beijing, February 5, 2007. 3. Wang, Nongmingong de banchengshihuawenti, (Peasant Workers SemiUrbanization), 41-57. 4. Prior research on the Internet has shown that it serves to facilitate belonging and community among certain ethnic minorities who feel marginalized in the U.S. See, for example, Matei and Ball-Rokeach, Belonging in Geographic, Ethnic, and Internet Spaces. 5. A talk presented at the Annenberg Research Network on International Communication in April 2005 by Sebastian Ureta on the spatial immobility of lowincome families in Chile first started my thinking about this term. I do not recall him using the term immobile mobility, yet later I learned that he had in fact presented a different paper elsewhere with this term in the title. However, our uses differ. See Ureta, Evanescent Connection and The Immobile Mobility. 6. See, for example, Fortunati, The Mobile Phone. On low-income families in Chile, see Ureta, The immobile Mobility. 7. The work of Mizuko Ito has been especially influential. See, for example, Ito and Okabe, Technosocial Situations. 8. Wall, Ferrazzi, and Schryer, "Getting the Goods, 304. 9. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 19. 10. Wellman, et al., "Does the Internet Increase, Decrease, or Supplement Social Capital?" 437; Wellman et al. distinguish network capital from participatory capital, which is involvement in politics and voluntary organizations that affords opportunities for people to bond, create joint accomplishments, and aggregate and articulate their demands and desires (437). As Wellman notes, Robert Putnam and James Colemans use of the term social capital is closer to participatory capital. 11. Bourdieu and. Wacquant, Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, 119. 12. Bourdieu, Forms of Capital, 249. 13. Bourdieu, Distinction, 110. 244

14. Bourdieu and Wacquant, Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, 80. 15. Ibid., 82. 16. Bourdieu, Forms of Capital, 249. 17. Ibid., 250. 18. King, Kuan-hsi and Network Building, 65. 19. Hamilton and Wang, Introduction, 25. 20. Fei, From the Soil, 62-63. 21. Cited in Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets, 295. 22. See, for example, Hwang, Face and Favor; Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets; Yan, Flow of Gifts. 23. Hamilton and Wang, Introduction, 21. 24. Fei, From the Soil, 70. 25. King, Kuan-hsi and Network Building, 73. 26. Ibid., 66, 67. 27. Yan, Flow of Gifts, 74. 28. Gold, Guthrie, and Wank, Social Connections in China; King, Kuan-hsi and Network Building; Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets. 29. Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets, 76. 30. Yan, Flow of Gifts, 101-102; 226-227; see also Wilson, Face, Norms, and Instrumentality. 31. Gold, Guthrie, and Wank, Social Connections in China, 6. 32. Both Yan, Flow of Gifts and Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets make this point. 33. Gold, Guthrie, and Wank, Social Connections in China, 7. 245

34. Ibid., 8. 35. Kipnis, Producing Guanxi, 23, 24; see also, Wilson, Face, Norms, and Instrumentality, 166. 36. Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets, 68. 37. Ibid., 111. 38. Yan, Flow of Gifts, 80. 39. Ibid., 99-100. 40. King, Kuan-hsi and Network Building, 75. 41. Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets, 141. 42. Yan, Flow of Gifts, 227-228. 43. Kipnis, Producing Guanxi, 8. 44. Yan, Flow of Gifts, 227. 45. Several studies have found that female mobile phone users often emphasize safety as a reason for buying a cell phone. For example, in a 1998 survey of female cell phone users in the U.S., the top reason given for owning a mobile phone (44%) was communications in an emergency (cited in Robbins and Turner, Popular, Pragmatic and Problematic, 84). See also, Castells et al., Mobile Communication and Society, 45. Interestingly, none of the women I spoke with ever mentioned safety or security as reasons for having a mobile phone. 46. Interview with Zhang Xiumei, Beijing, February 5, 2007. 47. In China, the term intellectual has traditionally been used to describe anyone who is educated, meaning those who are not workers, peasants, or merchants. 48. See, for example, Rosen, "State of Youth and Zang, "Social Resources, Class Habitus. For historical precedents, see Watson, Class and Social Stratification. In Chinese, the most authoritative study (and one that my Chinese colleagues frequently mentioned in discussions) is the volume edited by Lu, Dangdai Zhongguo Shehui Jieceng Yanjiu Baogao. 49. Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets, 111. 246

50. Ling, Mobile Connection, 111. 51. Ibid. 52. See, for example, Ito, Personal Portable Pedestrian: Lessons from Japanese Mobile Phone Use; see also Katz and Aakhus, Perpetual Contact. 53. Yoon, Retraditionalizing the Mobile, 330-331. 54. Ling and Yttri Hyper-coordination via Mobile Phones, 139. 55. Ibid., 140. 56. Hwang, Face and Favor, 963. 57. Lei, Rural Taste, Urban Fashions. 58. Cartier, Castells, and Qiu, Information Have-less, 21. 59. Sontag, On Photography, 3. 60. In fact, in the research cited below by Okabe and Ito, one participant stated, The camera phone is my eye. Everyday Contexts, 90. 61. Van House and Davis, Social Life of Cameraphone Images. 62. Okabe and Ito, Everyday Contexts, 87. 63. Ibid., 90. 64. Ibid., 86. 65. Bourdieu, Social Definition of Photography, 172. 66. Burgin, Art, Common Sense and Photography, 41. 67. Ibid., 48. 68. Watney, On the Institutions of Photography. 69. Ibid., 159. 70. Van House and Davis, Social Life of Cameraphone Images. 247

71. Okabe and Ito, Everyday Contexts; Rivire, Mobile Camera Phones. 72. Interview with Li Yun, Beijing, April 4, 2007. 73. Okabe and Ito also stress the significance of the highly personalized viewpoint expressed through images stored in mobile phones. 74. Sontag, On Photography, 16. 75. Ibid., 3. 76. Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulations. 77. Interview with Guo Yanmin, Beijing, May 31, 2007. 78. The May Fourth Movement took place in China during the early 20th century and was an urban intellectual movement which emphasized the rejection of traditional Confucian Chinese culture and the adoption of western modes of science, equality, and democracy in order for China to regain its position on the world stage. 79. Judd noted the role of community leaders in arranging marriages for young women with no brothers in the village she studied in northern China, Gender and Power, 181; Davis and Harrell, Introduction: The Impact of Post-Mao Reforms on Family Life, 10. 80. Riley, "Interwoven Lives. 81. Johnson, Family Strategies and Economic Transformation, 118. 82. Kipnis, Producing Guanxi, 137. 83. Potter and Potter, China's Peasants, 199. 84. Ibid. 197. 85. Yan, Flow of Gifts, 40; See also Yan, Courtship, Love and Premarital Sex, and Private Life Under Socialism. 86. Yan, Courtship, Love and Premarital Sex, 32. 87. Ibid., 33.

248

88. Kipnis, Producing Guanxi, 88. China has one of the highest sex ratio imbalances in the world, particularly in rural areas due to lack of a social welfare system for the elderly and traditional parental preference for boys which have led to sex selective abortion and female infanticide due to the one-child policy. 89. Yan, Flow of Gifts, 180. 90. Ibid., 195. 91. Ibid., 198. 92. Xu, Social Origins of Historical Changes, 45. 93. Whyte, Changes in Mate Choice, 184-185. 94. Pan et al., Dangdai Zhongguoren, 163. 95. Riley, "Interwoven Lives, 794; the exact percentages are: Liaoning, 20; Shandong, 27; Guangdong, 25; Guizhou, 26; Gansu, 24. 96. Ibid., 798. 97. Davis and Harrell, Introduction: The Impact of Post-Mao Reforms on Family Life, 10. Though the legal minimum age for marriage for men and women is 22 and 20, respectively, in certain villages the bride and groom might be even younger as a result of the economic reforms. As Chan, Madsen, and Unger found in their study of Chen village near the Hong Kong border, some parents have reverted to traditional thinking where early marriages are seen as a sign of a prosperous family, since less well-off families need to delay the marriage of their offspring in order to accumulate finances for the marriage costs. Some villagers surmised, however, that the reason for the early marriages was an increase in pregnancies out of wedlock, Chen Village under Mao and Deng, 297. In her study of a southern market town Sui also noted an instance of parents marrying off their son early so that he could receive the family wealth, Reconstituting Dowry and Brideprice, 181. 98. Interview with Sun Zhixin, Beijing, April 15, 2007. 99. Zheng, Waichu Jingli, 195-199. 100. These patterns vary by province and depend on a number of factors, including traditional views about female morality and chastity. See, for example, Roberts, Nongcun Fun. 101. Fan, Out to the City, 179; Tan, Leaving Home and Coming Back, 251. 249

102. Tan, Leaving Home and Coming Back, 252. Xie Lihua, the founder of the Beijing Cultural Development Center for Rural Women, called the increasing number of rural women remaining in Beijing well into their late twenties and early thirties a growing social crisis (as cited in Jacka, Rural Women, 154). 103. See, for example, Beynon, Dilemmas of the Heart; Luo et al. Migration Experience of Young Women. 104. Beynon, Dilemmas of the Heart, 143; Gaetano, Filial Daughters, 288. 105. Jacka, Rural Women, 87-91; 93. 106. Beynon, Dilemmas of the Heart, 142; Luo et al., Migration Experience of Young Women, 237. 107. See, for example, Gaetano, Filial Daughters; Jacka, Rural Women. 108. Law and Peng, Use of Mobile Phones, 252-254. Pertierra found this practice to be quite common in the Philippines. See Mobile Phones, Identity and Discursive Intimacy, 35-36. 109. For a discussion of rural women and knowing how to talk see Jacka, Rural Women, 19. 110. The safety provided by text messaging for the relaying of intimate feelings among youth has been reported by scholars researching in a variety of contexts. See, for example, Ellwood-Clatyon, Virtual Strangers; see also, Pritz, Intimacy Fiction. 111. Ma and Cheng noted similar gender differences in love text messages in their research among factory workers in southern China, see Naked Bodies, 8. 112. Friedman, Spoken Pleasures; Jacka, Rural Women; Yan, Flow of Gifts and Private Life. 113. Pan, Transformations in the Primary Life Cycle, 22-23, 35; see also Farrer, Sexual Citizenship in the same volume. In the popular press, see, for example, Beech, Sex and the Single Chinese. 114. Interview with Chen Weiwei, Beijing, April 24, 2007. 115. See, for example, Weilenmann and Larsson, Local Use and Sharing. 116. Interview with Zhang Meili, Beijing, December 12, 2006. 250

117. Whyte, Changes in Mate Choice, 205-207. 118. Xu, Social Origins of Historical Changes, 39. 119. Davis, Introduction: A Revolution in Consumption, 12. 120. Yan, McDonalds in Beijing. 121. Gergen, Self and Community, 111. 122. See, for example, Connelly et al., Waichu Dagong dui Nongcun Fun; Fan, Out to the City; Murphy, How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China. 123. Ma and Cheng, Naked Bodies, 16-18. 124. Gaetano, Filial Daughters.

251

CHAPTER FIVE: TECHNOLOGIES OF FREEDOM?:1 MOBILE PHONES, RESISTANCE, AND SURVEILLANCE IN THE WORKPLACE It may be that no technology has done more to give individuals freedom than the mobile phone. James Katz.2 They do whatever I tell them to do. I dont need to ask them. I say it and they do it. Thats how it is. Manager, Shuru Ziliao Company, Beijing, May 24, 2007. I begin with these two seemingly disparate quotes in order to draw attention to perhaps the central contradiction embodied in mobile phones: the dreams of freedom they inspire due to their ability to enable users anywhere, anytime to surpass the boundaries of space and time, coupled with the more sobering reality that they, like all technologies, can be utilized to enact and reinforce already existing relations of domination and subordination. Such a paradox is not unique to the mobile phone. In his seminal essay Do Artifacts Have Politics? Langdon Winner noted, Scarcely a new invention comes along that someone doesnt proclaim it as the salvation of a free society.3 Then, in answer to the rhetorical question posed in the title of his essay, Winner uses numerous examples to show that indeed politics, which he defines as arrangements of power and authority in human associations as well as the activities that take place within those arrangements, are always present as technologies become embedded and appropriated within a social system.4 In this chapter I explore how mobile phones, as artifacts with politics, are implicated in various relationships of power through focusing on one particular site: labor. As mentioned earlier, the majority of the women involved in this study could be classified as youth or young adults. However, their lives are quite distinct from their 252

peers whose mobile phone use has been researched extensively in Scandinavia, Western Europe, Japan, and Korea. They do not enjoy the personal freedoms of these youth populations or those of Chinese urban youth, yet at the same time they are not subject to the typical modes of parental and school organization and control to which these youth must submit. Their parents are hundreds of miles away, and aside from the women in the computer course, most of the women in this study were not attending any type of schooling. Nevertheless, in the workplace they must contend with myriad regulations that are often far more stringent than those associated more generally with home and school. Failure to comply can carry rather severe consequences because migrants in general lack legal protection and female migrants in particular are discursively constructed as a weak social group (ruanruo quanti).5 Cultural traditions that instruct rural woman to be submissive, dutiful daughters and institutionalized gender discrimination often position migrant women in the workplace in parent-child type relationships governed by patriarchal modes of authority and control.6 However, contrary to media reports and popular discourses that perpetuate a myth of migrant women as passive and compliant, many women actively resist attempts by employers to mold their identity as dagongmei. Such resistance can take several forms, from simply quitting an especially exploitative job, to calling on the legal assistance of an NGO. Of course, neither of these is always feasible. Some women will not leave a job, no matter how terrible the conditions, because they believe they wont be able to find a better job and because a favorite trick of employers is to refuse to pay any wages to an employee who quits. I witnessed this firsthand at one of the restaurants where I visited several times when I 253

happened to show up one day just as two migrant women that I knew decided they were leaving: they could no longer take the grueling hours and isolated living conditions. Though they had both been working for three months without a day off, their boss refused to give them any of their salary. I then accompanied them to another restaurant in the center of the city where a friend of theirs worked and where it was uncertain whether the conditions would be any better. Though they clearly had exercised agency in quitting (one of them told me, I must leave. I cant take it anymore), they also felt they had nothing (mei shenme). In such cases of exploitation, or where even physical abuse takes place, women who seek legal assistance from an NGO are a very small minority. Many migrant women are unaware of or not involved in the NGOs that serve the migrant community. As more and more migrant women have cell phones, they are increasingly using them as tools of socio-techno resistance in the labor sphere. In all of the workplaces where I conducted fieldwork, mobile phones in the hands of migrant women and their employers were often a conspicuous sight (except for restaurants, which will be explained below). At work, women (and men) use their phones for myriad reasons and in ways that are both sanctioned and prohibited according to regulations set down by employers. Indeed, the ubiquity of cell phones means that at nearly every worksite there are explicit rules as well as tacit protocols regarding mobile phone usage. Some employers ban cell phones outright while others allow their use as long as it does not interfere with job responsibilities. Still others use mobile phones as a means of furthering their ability to monitor or even harass workers. In the course of my research, it thus became clear that cell phones are not just a medium for communication, 254

entertainment, or self-presentation, though of course they can be utilized for all of these purposes. Of equal significance within the context of migrant women and labor is the way mobile phones become implicated in overt as well as subtle struggles over individual autonomy and control, thereby bringing into sharp focus the unequal relationships that exist between migrant women and their bosses and the larger cultural and structural forces that keep migrant women in an economically marginalized position. In this chapter, to examine these issues I will first briefly discuss macro-level analyses of new communication technologies and control in China. Then, in contrast to such top-down analyses of power, as in chapter three I utilize Michel Foucaults conceptualization of power and add Michel De Certeaus notion of tactics and strategies to discuss how migrant women use mobile phones to resist authority as well as reify asymmetrical power relations. In discussing such resistance (or lack thereof) I focus on two specific worksites restaurants and marketplaces to argue, following Linda Martn Alcoff, that a womans position in a fluid matrix of ideologies, practices, habits, and language will shape her gendered subjectivity as well as her ability to exercise autonomy and agency. A key point of my argument is that a cell phone at work, whether it is used or not, can produce a sense of self in a space where notions of individuality and personal autonomy are often suppressed. Following this discussion I turn to how employers also utilize mobile phones for their own purposes of surveillance and control, yet I do not frame my analysis based on particular worksites. Instead, I argue that the specific power relations that inhere in the system of rural-to-urban migrant labor create the existential conditions for mobile 255

phone surveillance. In the last section I will touch on the issue of whether migrant women use cell phones to resist their low economic status, in other words, whether phones are used to increase income or find better employment. Throughout this chapter it will be shown that in the everyday lives of migrant women at work, mobile phones become central actors in a quotidian dialectic of freedom and control. Cell Phones and Surveillance in China A Top-Down View Analyses of new communication technologies and their role in control and surveillance in China usually approach the issue by looking at the Chinese governments efforts to censor information, stifle dissent, and maintain socialist morality. Perhaps the most obvious example of this approach is research on the Great Firewall, or the governments protracted endeavor to limit, through technological and human means, the content of the Internet in China.7 Recently, the states attempt to regulate and monitor mobile phone content, particularly text messages, has also come under scrutiny. For example, Jia Lu and Ian Weber make a case for the governments exercise of what they term instrumental (coercive) and structural (regulatory) power in monitoring SMS and punishing those who use text messaging inappropriately (e.g., to spread rumors during the SARS epidemic).8 Jack Qiu has also written about what he calls the IT industrial complex in China, which includes a system of keyword-based filtering and state-led broadcasting through mobile messaging.9 He shows how because the telecom companies are government-owned, the infrastructure through which all SMS and MMS travel are easily susceptible to state-monitoring and theoretically could be stored in a state-owned 256

database. 10 Giving credence to Qius claim, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2008, the CEO of China Mobile, Wang Jianzhou, revealed that the company had unlimited access to its customers personal information stating We know who you are, but also where you are and that it would hand over such information as requested by the Chinese government.11 Qiu also discusses a factory in southern China that has implemented a jiqunwang, or Concentrated Collective Network, as an intra-organizational system in which employers supply various types of mobile phones to employees who are distributed throughout the factory hierarchy. Employers pay part of the managers phone bills and then demand that they leave their phones on continuously, yet factory workers are prohibited from carrying their handsets onto the factory floor.12 In either case, the system functions as a means for managers to monitor employees work and communications. Such research is important as a counterpoint to both academic and popular discourses that extol mobile phones and especially text messaging for their liberatory potential, particularly in the lives of youth around the globe (a point Qiu makes). However, it provides a structural analysis and a traditional view of power that is topdown and authoritarian. The jiqunwang that Qiu describes is instituted by the upper echelon of the factory and reinforces his point that mobile technologies potentially allow those in power a new form of control: a wireless leash. While not discounting the serious consequences of such forms of mobile-enabled manipulation nor denying how power operates vertically and is exerted over the subordinated, here I wish to draw attention to the more mundane, yet no less significant ways that cell phones are implicated in issues of power and surveillance, as well as everyday modes of resistance. 257

Foucault, Gender, and Resistance As elaborated in chapter three, Foucault insists that to fully understand the workings of power, power itself must be theorized outside of traditional notions that view it solely as authoritarian, or as emanating from legal mandates, or only as something repressive.13 To Foucault, power is always involved in and located within a fluid field of relations between individuals, partners, who are not necessarily equal but who seek to act on one another, or to act upon their actions on possible or actual future or present actions.14 Thus, power is a dynamic relationship that entails the mutually constitutive actions of individuals (or groups) who try to influence or manage one anothers possible actions in an unfixed and changeable relationship.15 Also as mentioned in chapter three, one manifestation of power is what Foucault calls docile bodies, which are produced through various disciplinary practices not only in institutions, but also in an array of social relations. Docile bodies are not a result of force but of our own compliance and internalization of certain norms and behaviors. Furthermore, as Sandra Bartky and Susan Bordo have argued, throughout history the female body has been the site for particular configurations of power as a result of different social values accorded to male and female bodies. While Bartky and Bordo focus on norms of female beauty and appearance, transnational feminist scholar Chandra Mohanty argues that in much of the developing world the logic of the global economy depends on an image of a marginalized woman worker and a notion of womens work that naturalizes certain hierarchies and ideologically constructs lowskilled, low-wage jobs in terms of notions of appropriate femininity, domesticity, (hetero)sexuality, and racial and cultural stereotypes16 258

Surely the docile body of the migrant woman and her positionality as a rural, unskilled, female laborer is vital to the Chinese states smooth operations within global capitalism. As mentioned earlier, in China patriarchal norms still persist in many segments of the labor market, particularly in the unquestioned expectation that rural women should be docile, passive workers who are content to replace submission to a male familial hierarchy with similar respect and obedience to a labor boss (male or female). Thus, Mohanty adds, It is especially on the bodies and lives of women and girls from the Third World/South the Two-Thirds World that global capitalism writes its script, and it is by paying attention to and theorizing the experiences of these communities of women and girls that we demystify capitalism as a system of debilitating sexism and racism and envision anticapitalist resistance.17 While Mohanty is primarily concerned with anti-globalization struggles and other collective actions of resistance, as I stated earlier, in this chapter I focus on the everyday, often individual modes of resistance that are produced and enabled by the very fluidity of power relations upon which Foucault insists. As one of his most famous quotes goes, Where there is power, there is resistance, and further, These points of resistance are present everywhere in the power network.18 To Foucault, power relationships as opposed to complete domination imply that the one over whom power is exercised must be a subject who is free to act (as opposed to a slave), and such action can take the form of a variety of behaviors, responses, and outcomes.19 He asserts, At the very heart of the power relationship, and constantly provoking it, are the recalcitrance of the will and the intransigence of freedom.20 One must therefore begin an analysis of power relations by attending to strategies of resistance that arise within 259

and against these very forms of power. Such strategies are multiple, contingent, and often contradictory. Foucaults insistence on strategies of resistance can be linked to similar ideas found in the work of Michel de Certeau, who also sought to show how particular configurations of power enable certain oppositional reactions. However, in a reversal of terminology, de Certeau distinguishes between strategies and tactics. The former is a calculated manipulation of a power relationship by those in a dominant position. It is undertaken in order to delimit a place that allows one to better manage exterior targets and threats by an other.21 Tactics, on the other hand, are used by the marginalized or those without their own space to resist these very strategies. As de Certeau states, a tactic operates in isolated actions by taking advantage of opportunities.22 Furthermore, those who use tactics must vigilantly make use of the cracks that particular conjunctions open in the surveillance of the proprietary powers.23 De Certeau shows how historically those in subordinate positions have inverted intended purposes of laws, practices, and representations imposed on them by those in authority in order to exert their autonomy and create their own identity. When Foucault and de Certeaus ideas regarding power, resistance, tactics, and surveillance are joined with an analysis of gender, class, and place, they create a useful framework for analyzing how mobile phones are used by migrant women as tools both to resist and conform to a subjected, used, transformed, improved and gendered docile body in the workplace. They also provide a means for understanding how migrant womens resistance engenders new forms of control and how institutionalized norms and discourses produce the conditions for employer surveillance of migrant 260

women via cell phones. Before turning to my own findings in this regard, in the next section I first highlight two ethnographic studies of female migrant workers in southern China in order to situate my analysis. Workplace Control, Resistance, and Compliance Like the Chinese government, which has invested tremendous energy toward regulating the minds and bodies of migrant workers in the form of propaganda campaigns aimed at making them more cultured, hygiene and family planning endeavors, vocational training programs, and, most importantly, the hukou system, employers similarly devote time and effort to molding migrant workers into docile bodies. Of course, urban residents must also contend with workplace disciplines and with numerous media campaigns promoting a harmonious, civilized society, especially in Beijing as the 2008 Summer Olympics approach.24 However, as an extremely marginalized population, migrant workers are even more likely to face employers attempts to exercise various forms of physical and mental control over them. As exemplified in the quote at the beginning of this chapter, some employers operate as if they own their workers, attempting to strip them of any individual agency and exerting an inordinate amount of influence over their lives. Migrant women, due to their particular location in patriarchal capitalist labor relations, are seen as consenting targets of such forms of control, since their bodies, even more so than what Sandra Bartky argues about female bodies in general, are discursively produced as more docile than the bodies of men.25

261

For this reason, control and manipulation by bosses over their workers has been a prominent feature in ethnographic accounts of migrant women in China. For example, in her research on a Chinese audio equipment factory, Ching Kwan Lee describes a localistic, despotic factory regime with a highly gendered organizational chain of command, where male managers exercise patriarchal control over their female employees through a variety of means.26 For example, managers used extremely sexist language with the women, often implying that they were merely passing time as they waited to be married off. They also directly and indirectly indicated to the female workers that they were ignorant, immature, and unreliable.27 Similarly, Pun Ngais portrayal of managements disciplinary regime over the bodies of female workers is a virtual rewriting of Foucaults Docile Bodies in Discipline and Punish, albeit set in a Chinese electronics factory.28 Just as Foucault described what he called a new means of disciplinary control through regulations of time, space, gestures, and each of the relations that the body must have with the object that it manipulates, 29 as well as the self-surveillance imposed by the Panopticon, so too Pun describes how the women are taught to move in a mechanized manner, how they are positioned spatially on the line, how they follow a rigid timetable, and how they are subjected to the Panoptic electronic eye.30 Like Lee, Pun notes that managers often chose words that denigrated the female identity of the women. They also belittled their rural identity as well, derisively calling them village girls with rough hands, rough feet or admonishing them to be careful since they werent plowing a furrow.31 Such language was used not only to discipline the women, but also to mold them into

262

docile workers rather than backward peasants and to inscribe a feminine, subordinate identity on them. Though perhaps not as rigidly controlled as the workers described by Pun and Lee, all of the women in my study whatever their occupation had nonetheless undergone (and continued to undergo) numerous types of training and were subjected to various disciplines, or systems of micro-power that are essentially non-egalitarian and asymmetrical, to ensure that they were docile, compliant bodies in the workplace.32 However, the degree of control, the amount of what I call regulated drudgery, and the extent of an inspecting and internalized gaze meant to enforce gendered disciplinary practices varied significantly by job and specific location. For example, at some restaurants and hair salons a common practice by management is to line up all of the employees on the sidewalk in pseudo-military formation and give them a pep talk before the beginning of business hours. Such talks can range from encouraging workers to do their best, to berating employees who might have committed some sort of mistake during the prior work shift. The public nature of such talks is clearly meant as a disciplining technique to produce a practiced and subjected worker; it also has a performative effect in that through repetition, a well-disciplined, competent, hardworking staff is constituted and made visible to potential customers. Socio-techno Resistance In the following discussion of the types of power relations in which migrant women were involved and how mobile phones were used to resist or sustain such relations, as mentioned earlier a key point of my argument is that specific occupations 263

and workplace environments are constitutive of particular power relations and practices, and that overtly gendered discourses and hierarchies are central to all of these. Thus, a womans positionality which encompasses not only her place in the broader structures of Chinese urban society but also her location in a particular labor site is the necessary starting point for understanding the networks of power, disciplines, and tactics to which her mobile phone use is articulated. Also, although discrimination based on class and geographical origin informed the labor experience of the migrant women in my study, like Pun I believe that these identities were secondary to their identity as female. While I also agree with her that in the migrant womens workplaces gender became a means of discipline and self-discipline, invoked so that they would learn to police themselves,33 I seek to show how mobile phones could, in some cases, be used to disrupt these very disciplines. Restaurants In general, the work environment of many restaurants in Beijing is rather regimented, and various rules and policies enable employers to have considerable control over their workers. For example, employees (male and female) frequently have to attend mandatory training or teamwork sessions in the afternoon between shifts. Trainings are designed to teach employees proper techniques for waiting on customers, including posture, language, and mannerisms. Teamwork sessions (not to be confused with the pep talks mentioned earlier) aim to build camaraderie among employees and loyalty to the restaurant. At their core, all of these activities are meant to ensure that rural peasants are transformed into docile bodies in the workplace.

264

Another disciplinary technique is the requirement that new employees give employers a deposit (yajin, usually 100 to 500 yuan, about $13.00 to $65.00, depending on the size of the restaurant) out of their first paycheck. If an employee wants to quit their job and receive this deposit back, they must first receive a good evaluation (pizhun) from their boss. Of course, such evaluations are usually arbitrary and the whole system allows employers to keep all or most of an employees deposit when he or she leaves a job. Several women also told me their bosses had demanded their identity cards (shenfenzhen). This practice, which is technically illegal, leaves workers extremely vulnerable to the whims of their employers. Like the hair salons discussed in chapter three, most restaurants also maintain employee distinctions and hierarchies based on sex, with specific jobs allocated to men and other jobs designated for women. Just as in the hair salons, both overt policies and unspoken assumptions serve to uphold appropriate norms of masculinity and femininity in the workplace. Traditionally in China, women in the household were responsible for cooking; however, in public eating establishments women could only make flour items like noodles or dumplings while males prepared dishes of meat and vegetables (e.g. the real food). In Beijing, this custom still persists in many restaurants, meaning that men prepare the food and women serve it. Though males can also be servers, women make up the majority. This practice is not far removed from the western construction of a chef as a subject position that is traditionally gendered male. It also brings to mind Susan Bordos work on gender differences regarding hunger and food. As she persuasively argues, in much western advertising discourse, men eat and women prepare, a dualism that positions women frequently constructed as maternal 265

figures as always nurturing, self-sacrificing, and content to receive their gratification through nourishing others, usually men and children (emphasis in original).34 Men, on the other hand, are the object of womens love, via their stomach, and are encouraged to relish not only such love but also the food that comes with it. Though in the contemporary Chinese restaurant context, the dualism must be rephrased as men prepare, women serve, the gender asymmetries are no less significant. In China, traditionally any type of service work has been seen as demeaning, and this is no less true of waiting tables, which is devalued as an unskilled occupation most appropriate for women. A woman from the countryside who is a waitress thus faces triple marginalization due to her gender, her rural background, and her occupation. These gender-, place-, and class-based employment inequalities are then reproduced in the restaurant environment. In all but the smallest restaurants, it is customary to have two young attractive women stand at the door to greet customers as they enter. This job is rarely held by males. More so than their male counterparts, in most restaurants women must adhere to strict regulations regarding their appearance and decorum. Their uniforms usually consist of sheer blouses and short skirts or a qipao (a traditional Chinese dress, very form-fitting with a slit skirt and a mandarin collar), and they are expected to be young and good looking. Certain establishments even maintain height and weight standards, which exist especially to please male customers. As discussed earlier, in China, marketization has created a male business culture where deals are made and favors exchanged through banqueting at restaurants that involves large amounts of food and alcohol and frequenting karaoke bars (where hostesses are often also prostitutes).35 In 266

this domain, women as business partners are rare, but female service staff occupy a position that is at once subservient yet crucial: their presence enables the smooth functioning of social relations that then leads to promises being made and deals being sealed. A young, attractive, attentive female waitress is an integral link in the masculine chain of talk, toasts, and transactions.36 This type of gendered restaurant culture is pervasive regardless of whether a dining establishment is considered common or extravagant or whether the customers are male or female. Though all employees are required to be submissive to bosses and to meet the demands of even the most particular of customers, females are expected to be especially demure in their interactions with patrons, even when these patrons are rude and when such interaction might cause a woman extreme discomfort. In an interview with Ji Hua, a woman who worked at a restaurant that I visited many times, she once told me, When the male patrons are drinking they tell a lot of dirty stories and say a lot of bad words. I hate to listen to it, but there is nothing I can do since I have to stand nearby to wait on them.37 Surely the male customers Ji Hua speaks of are aware that their language and behavior might embarrass her, but since they regard her as merely a dagongmei, her inferior status gives them license to behave in ways that would not be sanctioned were they in their own home with their own wife or daughter. In various restaurants I often saw customers hail their servers in a very gruff manner or scold them if they didnt bring out a dish quickly enough; in essence, they treated them (male and female) like servants. An exception to this was in a small restaurant that was part of an inn owned by the Womens Federation. Here the employees tended to be treated better

267

by both their employer and the guests, who were often in Beijing for business or conferences affiliated with the Federation. In such a restaurant atmosphere based on subservience and control, employers see mobile phones as a threat to their authority; thus, in many restaurants employees are banned from bringing their phones to work altogether. If they are caught with a phone, it is confiscated and returned either at the end of the work day or in some cases a week later, and usually their pay is docked. I should point out that this happens not if an employee is caught using a phone but merely if they are discovered with one in their possession at work. Employers, then, seek not only to mold workers bodies their posture, motility, and speech but also to regulate what is carried on their bodies. Such control over mobile phones is akin to schools where mobile phones are banned since they are seen as potentially disruptive and also as threats to teachers authority.38 The difference, of course, is that the migrant workers in these restaurants are adults, yet the environment is built according to norms of patriarchal authority and control, with a boss or manager serving as a parental figure and the employees, particularly the women, constructed as child-like subjects. Like their similarly-aged peers in schools around the globe, many migrant women working in restaurants attempt to subvert such authority. In the power relations in which their mobile phone has become entangled, they enact resistance in largely subtle ways that arent always even about usage but rather about mere possession. Such possession as resistance as a socio-techno practice is exemplified in the following conversation I had with Luo Li Kun, a colleague of Ji Huas, about her cell phone at work:

268

CW: Do you bring your mobile phone to work despite the ban? LLK: Yes, sometimes. I want to know if I receive a message. CW: How do you conceal your phone from others? LLK: Depending on which uniform I am wearing, I can put my phone in my pocket and no one can tell it is there but me. CW: Do you use your phone much at work? LLK: No once in a while, but not usually. I like to feel that I have it. CW: Are you afraid youll get caught? LLK: No, Im not afraid, but its possible.39 Through Luo Li Kuns words, it is clear that the mere fact of carrying a mobile phone a very personal item is an act of resistance against arbitrary rules and power relations that operate to regulate her behavior and strip her of her right even to decide what she brings or does not bring to work. To her, just to feel her mobile phone against her body holds symbolic meaning. In de Certeaus terms, this is a tactic exercised by someone clearly in the margins to contend with the strategies of the powerful. But such tactics are not without their risks. If Luo Li Kuns employer were to catch her with her phone, she would have to pay 50 yuan (about $6.50, one twelfth of her monthly income). Considering that all of her friends aside from her boyfriend are still in her hometown and her mobile phone is her primary means of keeping in touch with them, the possibility of having it confiscated for up to a week is a risk that surpasses even the potential financial consequences. I met other women who engaged in similar symbolic protests against authoritarian bosses. Some women were bolder than Luo Li Kun, and they made it clear that carrying their phone was meant to be an act of defiance. For example, Tan Fenfang had been a waitress at several different venues in Beijing. She was currently a cashier at a restaurant and took advantage of her fixed position and the large counter where she was 269

stationed to use her mobile phone to text message off and on throughout her shift. She had once been fined by her employer for using her phone, but her phone had not been taken, and this punishment had not deterred her. She explained her phone usage at work to me in this way: These bosses cant control everything.40 Unlike Luo Li Kun and Tan Fenfang, others have internalized the boss gaze and are scared to use their phone even when unsupervised, lest they get caught, their phone confiscated, and their pay reduced. Quite frequently, however, when they are brought to work at the restaurants whether they are used or not cell phones are a tool deployed by migrant women in tactical maneuvers of resistance to modes of control informed primarily by gender- but also class- and place-based inequalities. Marketplaces As with the hair salons mentioned in chapter three and the restaurants described above, gendered power relations and divisions of labor are quite apparent in both small shops and large marketplaces in Beijing, where most of the employees are migrants, and the majority of them are young women. Young and middle-aged men work in the marketplaces as well, but in most cases they are clearly a minority and occupy a different status than the women. The older men are generally running their own business. The younger men are usually the son or son-in-law of the owner of the stall where they work, and their job is not only to sell products but also to keep an eye on employees. The women with whom they work often address these young men using fictive kin terms such as older brother (dage) thereby situating their unequal power relations within a traditional, patriarchal family ideology.41

270

Working as a vendor is considered an unskilled occupation and as such thought to be suitable for migrant women, but I was also told by several people that since women are more interested in fashion, they are naturally better at selling clothes. There is also a belief that if a vendor is young and cute, customers are more likely to purchase something from her. This is seen as especially important since, unlike in the department stores and shopping malls, bargaining is de rigueur in many small shops and all of the marketplaces. Of course, this logic should apply in the case of young male vendors negotiating with female customers, but essentialized notions of gender in China map different sales strategies onto male and female bodies. The former should use their apparently innate masculine skills of logic, rationality, and (with electronics), technical expertise to make a sale while the latter are expected to employ feminine charm, persuasion, and feelings to compel customers to purchase goods. In the large marketplaces that have an entire floor (or two) devoted to selling as well as making jewelry, the myth of nimble fingers is also evident.42 The workers who spend 10 hours a day piecing together necklaces, bracelets, and earrings of pearls and other semiprecious stones are overwhelmingly female. As mentioned in chapter one, I spent a lot of time in two small shops and three large marketplaces. The atmosphere of the small shops contrasted greatly with the large marketplaces in job requirements and employee-employer relationships. The two small shops differed from one another as well in terms of the control of employees by employers. In one shop, the owner was rarely present, and the young woman who worked there everyday had a fairly large degree of autonomy regarding how she spent her time. When there were no customers and she did not have any tasks to do, she could 271

read magazines or use her cell phone. At the other small shop the situation was quite different. In the mornings, the young migrant woman employed there was on her own and frequently sent text messages to a few friends as she went about helping customers and managing the shop. However, everyday once the owner arrived in the early afternoon, she kept this employee busy with endless tasks and forbade her to use her phone even when there were no customers and no jobs to be done. The marketplaces are more regimented compared to the small shops, and depending on the market and even the particular stall, employees can be required to stand for hours on end, to maintain an erect posture (crossing arms is forbidden), and to try to attract customers by saying the right words. This means the women are not supposed to wait for someone to approach and express interest in their goods. Instead, they must call out incessantly to passersby (e.g., Do you want to buy a bag? What kind of bag? I have Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Coach) in the hope that someone will stop and they can then engage them in a bargaining session. Bosses often stand to the side or, as noted above, employ a male relative to make sure that employees adhere to this exhausting, disciplinary regime. As one woman, Huang Hui An, remarked, We do all the work; the boss just hangs around reading the newspaper and drinking tea, watching to make sure we haggle with customers and don't steal any money.43 The marketplaces all have different rules regarding how their workers can spend their time during slow periods. Some allow employees to read, knit, or use their mobile phones when there are no customers present. Others permit reading but ban mobile phones outright. However, these prohibitions affect men and women at the markets differently. The older brothers mentioned earlier usually pay no heed to these rules. It 272

is commonly acknowledged that as a son or relative of the boss, they have privileges denied to mere workers. Like their peers in the hair salons, they also always have state of the art mobile phones: Nokia or Motorola, with camera functions, music and video players, and Internet connections. Many were quite eager to show me their phones, the games they played, the websites they surfed, and so on. The migrant women who work at the marketplaces, on the other hand, usually have inexpensive, Chinese-brand phones with voice and text functions and sometimes a camera. Though the women I knew at the markets tended not to be as brash as the young men in their resistance to the rules regarding mobile phone use, in the most regimented market atmosphere, where they can be under nearly constant surveillance, it is no wonder that a mobile phone becomes a small tool of resistance to reclaim space and time. Following Foucault, Doreen Massey reminds us that because the geometry of social/power relations is always shifting, structures of dominance are also never completely fixed.44 Thus, I often witnessed that when a boss was momentarily away or preoccupied, one of the first things many women did was check their phones. As Huang Hui An told me, I cant use my phone when my boss is around, even when there are no customers, but when hes not looking I still will send or read messages.45 James Katz has called attention to the way the public use of mobile phones is a type of dance in which all involved must engage in a bit of choreography in order to be in sync.46 By this Katz means that the mobile phone user, his or her co-present interlocutor prior to the incoming call, or strangers within earshot all must undertake a great deal of tacit but indirect coordination to navigate public space together.47 While this type of choreography certainly takes place in China as elsewhere, in the 273

marketplaces I often observed the opposite as well the mobile phone used as a direct means of remaining out of sync with those nearby. Cell phones, particularly those equipped with games or music, can become a means for migrant women to ignore customers who do not appear likely to buy something. As mentioned earlier, employees in the marketplaces are supposed to be more than attentive to customers they are pressured by employers to practically harass passersby in order to strike up a round of bargaining. Equipped with a mobile phone, however, some migrant women actively resist such job requirements. In so doing, they not only refuse standards of social etiquette, but also gender norms that cast them as passive, compliant female bodies. In a similar manner, mobile phones are also used to block out the unwanted banter of other colleagues. Among individual users, or shared among two or three people, a mobile phone can clearly be used as socio-techno means of exclusion and erecting barriers. But beyond staking out terrain and reclaiming space, in the marketplaces the mobile is used by migrant women (and men) for the most mundane of reasons to relieve the sheer boredom of standing day in and day out in the same cramped stall doing the same repetitive job. In the studies by Lee and Pun cited earlier, both noted the tactics used by the women in the factories to assert some control over their situation. Lee noticed that sometimes the women would ignore managers demands to work harder or faster, and they also seemed to delight in reappropriating the gendered language the managers used to control or denigrate them. Pun observed that the female workers occasionally slowed down the production line during a rush order when they felt over-worked and frequently listened to a radio playing pop music in defiance of company rules. Though these are 274

small and perhaps inconsequential forms of resistance, both Lee and Pun insist that the women were not just victims of patriarchal management control but were tactical agents in negotiating their own lives and in manipulating those exploitative forces for their own ends in their daily struggles.48 Whether in a restaurant or a market, clearly mobile phones do not break down the regimens of disciplinary control and power that circulate in and through migrant womens lives, and they may work even to maintain these. However, because of the very fluid nature of such power, cell phones do become tools for migrant women to engage in their own tactics for exercising individual agency just like the women in Lee and Puns studies no matter how constrained. If she desires, a young migrant woman can exert a mini-rebellion via her mobile phone on several fronts against a rigid and arbitrary rule, against a present but unwanted customer, against her boss who is relying on her labor for his or her own gain, and at a more existential level, against the material conditions of her life. While mobile phone uses as well as discourses can help sustain asymmetrical gender relations, they can also enable modes of empowerment that reconfigure these very relationships, even if only temporarily. They therefore are implements for de Certeaus tactics those methods that use, manipulate, and divert the spaces produced by the strategies of those in authority.49 However, just as strategies inspire tactics, tactics also inspire new strategies by those seeking to maintain and exploit their dominant position within networks of power. It is to such strategies that I now turn.

275

Mobile Phones and Surveillance Many scholars have drawn attention to the way that mobile phones can be used for new modes of surveillance and for further normalizing mechanisms of state monitoring and organizational control, as in the examples by Jia and Weber as well as Qiu highlighted earlier. In the labor sphere, aside from intra-organizational systems such as the jiqunwang described by Qiu, there has also been research on white collar mobile workers whose cell phones allow management greater ability to supervise their productivity away from the office and makes them potentially available outside of regular work hours, whether they want to be or not.50 In other realms such as family and school, wireless phones can also serve a surveillance function. As Nicola Green has shown in her study of the role of cell phones in school, parental, and peer monitoring of teenagers in England, mobile phones allow tele-present monitoring of others in micro-level social relationships based on mutual trust and accountability.51 Similar types of tele-present monitoring have been documented in mobile phone studies conducted in a number of countries including Japan and Norway.52 While the studies done on mobile workers, school, and family relationships tend to contextualize such surveillance within norms of reciprocal trust and mutual responsibility, of course cell phones have also been implicated in more malicious forms of surveillance, such as unauthorized taking and/or distributing of pictures or video of ostensibly private acts (e.g., Paris Hiltons infamous cell phone sex video) or intentional filming and disseminating of criminal behavior for a perverse grab at fame, such as in the case of the happy slappers in England.

276

In focusing on cell phones and surveillance specifically related to work, aside from the institutionalized modes of technological monitoring, where a highly organized central authority (the corporation) exerts control over those who are subordinate (the workers), and white collar workers whose mobile phone is one more device in their wired, mobile lifestyle, an important issue is how economically and socially marginalized populations become targets of employer surveillance in more incidental, mundane ways. In the case of migrant workers owning mobile phones, employers now have a means of keeping tabs on employees that they never had before given that most migrant workers do not have landlines. Furthermore, unlike parental monitoring or some monitoring of mobile workers, individual surveillance of migrant women by their employers does not necessarily take place within relations of mutual trust and accountability. Instead, what often becomes apparent is a lack of trust. In what follows I discuss three forms of employer cell phone surveillance, each with its own peculiarities and circumstances, enacted upon four migrant women. In the previous discussion of mobile phones and resistance in the workplace I sought to emphasize that particular occupational structures and locations enable or constrain specific forms of resistance. However, in the following discussion I shift the focus and argue instead that the overall power relations in which female migrants and their employers are situated give rise to modes of employer surveillance that are not dependent on a particular location. Rather, traditional authoritarian managerial styles, patriarchal modes of familial organization, and deeply engrained cultural prejudices against rural women create a socio-cultural assemblage in which the mobile phone (or

277

the prohibition of mobile phone ownership) is smoothly integrated into practices of surveillance and control. The Boutique Assistant Wu Daiyu worked as an assistant in a boutique that largely catered to a foreign clientele and was owned by a Beijing woman in her mid-30s who went by the name of Linda. The boutique was tiny, with two racks of clothing occupying the center, and the two side walls lined with rows of jackets, shirts, and skirts. Two narrow aisles on either side of the center rack cut paths to the back of the shop where there was a small changing room and mirror. Just to the right of the entrance at the front of the shop was a small counter with a cash register. This was where Linda usually sat when she was at the store, reviewing and placing orders or practicing her Japanese or English language skills with customers. Wu Daiyu was 20 years old and from a small village in Hebei province neighboring Beijing. In many ways, Wu Daiyus life was similar to other women I met. Both of her parents were farmers and she grew up extremely poor, the oldest of four children. When she was a teenager, her father had invested in a local enterprise, but when a business partner ran off with all of the money he was left with nothing. After this event, Wu Daiyu dropped out of middle school and worked in a local factory to help support her family. She repeatedly told me how dumb (hen ben) she was and how she lacked knowledge (meiyou wenhua). When I met her, she had been at the boutique for about a year. She worked everyday without a day off, earning 1,000 yuan per month (about $130), half of which she sent home to her family. She lived in a single room with

278

no heat on the outskirts of Beijing and commuted by bus about an hour each way to and from her job. Wu Daiyu bought her first mobile phone a month after she arrived in Beijing with the money she had saved from her factory job (she had given the rest of her salary to her parents). This was our conversation about the role of the mobile phone in her life: CW: When you first bought a mobile phone, what kind was it? WDY: It was a Chinese-made clamshell phone with a music player. CW: How much did it cost? WDY: About 800 yuan [about $104]. I bought it because I really like to listen to music. CW: Is it the same phone you have now? WDY: No, it was stolen one month after I bought it. I cried the whole day after that happened. I even dreamed about it. It was in my dreams a few times. I could see it. CW: You must have been really upset. WDY: Yeah. I was so sad. CW: When did you get your current phone? WDY: I saved up my money and bought another one a few months later, but it was cheaper, about 600 yuan [about $78], and it doesnt have a music player, which is a pity. CW: Why didnt you buy one with a music player? WDY: Because I was eager to buy a new phone. When I had a mobile phone I called my family once a week, but without a phone that was really hard to do with my work schedule. So I just bought a cheap one. Now I even call them twice a week [her family got a landline in 1999].53 I quote at length from my interview with Wu Daiyu for a number of reasons. Her story reinforces several points I have made in previous chapters the sacrifice that goes into purchasing a phone, its significance for maintaining links with others, its role as an entertainment device for women who usually do not own a radio or television set, and the devastation that is felt when a phone is stolen (which frequently happens in Beijing). Wu Daiyus mobile phone was a medium for communication, a symbol of her ability to manage her own resources and still display her affection and filial duty to her family, 279

and a device that allowed her to escape into the music that she loved. However, after she gave her mobile number to Linda, her employer, the phone took on a new role that she had never anticipated: it became something that brought her a lot of anguish. I discovered this one day when I dropped in to the boutique and noticed that Wu Daiyu looked very distraught. I asked her what was wrong and she said that in the last month Linda had been calling her on her mobile phone late at night to accuse her of stealing clothing from the shop. As Wu Daiyu explained: Last week at about 10:00pm I was just getting home. My mobile phone rang and it was Linda. She said she couldnt find some blouses that had just arrived and she accused me of taking them. I told her they were in the back of the shop, but she wouldnt listen to me. I was so upset. I told her I would go back to the shop and show her, to prove my innocence. The buses had stopped running so I was preparing to take a taxi. I was out on the street crying because I felt so bad that she would treat me that way and because I could not afford a cab.54 Just as I was about to flag one down Linda called me again and said she had found the clothing. It was where I had said it was. Then she apologized.55 Wu Daiyu was visibly distressed when she told me this story, and she said it was not the only time Linda had called her on her cell phone to level such accusations. However, each time Linda accused Wu Daiyu of theft, in the end it turned out that Linda either had misplaced something or had not bothered to look where Wu Daiyu suggested she look for whatever it was that was missing. Wu Daiyu said she desperately wanted to quit her job but was concerned that time spent looking for a new job was money she couldnt afford to lose. Its really hard to take, she repeated to me. I really cant take it. The example of Linda and Wu Daiyu illustrates how mobile phones can be used to reinforce existing power relations and how they actually create new opportunities for 280

the subordinated to be further manipulated by those in authority. Unlike the mobile workers whose cell phone is often supplied and paid for by their employers, Wu Daiyus personal phone, for which she sacrificed and shed tears, was usurped by Linda as a tool of manipulation and control in a very mundane, yet sinister manner. Furthermore, Lindas cellular harassment is not contingent on Wu Daiyus location in a specific occupation as a waitress or vendor. Rather, it is specific to the social construction of Wu Daiyu as a migrant worker, a subject position that is rendered subordinate, devalued, and dehumanized, and even more so when the signifier female is attached to it. In fact, given Chinas gender norms it is difficult to imagine Linda treating a male migrant worker in this particular manner. Lindas access to Wu Daiyus cell phone was clearly an attempt to curb Wu Daiyus sense of autonomy vis--vis her job and to remind her of her identity as a dagongmei. Mobile phones, then, are not always liberatory. Like other technologies, they can support asymmetrical power relationships, create new modes of exploitation and control, and supplant what should be relations of trust with suspicion and apprehension. Still, where there is power, there is resistance. Wu Daiyu eventually devised her own tactics to overcome Lindas strategies. Before leaving the shop each night, she reminded Linda where any new items were placed and checked to make sure everything was okay. If Linda was gone, Wu Daiyu performed this ritual via text message. This seemed to at least temporarily defuse Lindas behavior. The last time I saw Wu Daiyu she had actually moved into the tiny partition in the back of the store. While this maneuver could certainly be called a weak form of resistance or not resistance at all since it clearly resulted in a loss of some of her autonomy, I still believe it was a tactical 281

decision. It saved her rent money, a long bus commute, and the possibility of being accused of stealing, for there was no place for her to hide anything she could have possibly stolen (!). The Maintenance Worker The next example of cell phones and employer surveillance differs from Wu Daiyus case in that overt manipulation was not involved, yet it demonstrates how a mobile phone is easily co-opted for purposes that differ from its owners original intentions. Zhuang Jie had been in Beijing for about four years. During this time she had worked very hard to develop herself, attending computer training courses at a branch of the Beijing library, enrolling in English language classes, and finally entering night school at a university to receive the equivalent of a vocational degree. When I met her she was employed as the head of one section of the maintenance staff in a mid-sized company in Beijing. The staff she oversaw consisted of 17 young women who were responsible for cleaning and maintaining the companys offices, meeting rooms, and restrooms. In addition to supervising their work, Zhuang Jie had to ensure that these women, with whom she shared a dormitory, were in bed by their 10:00pm curfew and up and at work every morning by 8:00am. She also handled orders and deliveries of cleaning supplies and signed off on timesheets. Thus, her job required a fair amount of responsibility and managerial skills. Zhuang Jie had a very basic mobile phone that she had purchased three years earlier. It could handle voice calls and texting but did not have a camera or other functions. She originally bought it to keep in touch with her family back in the countryside as well as former colleagues from previous jobs in Beijing. Like most 282

women I knew, she spent about 50 yuan (about $6.50) per month on pre-paid phone cards. From our interview sessions and her mobile phone diaries, however, it became clear that her mobile phone frequently served other purposes than the social reasons for which she had originally purchased it. In four days of mobile phone logs she recorded 40 uses of her mobile phone, for an average of about 10 uses per day, most of which were text messages. However, Zhuang Jie acknowledged that sometimes she was so busy when she received a call or text at work that she hadnt always had time to log the communication. It is therefore reasonable to assume she actually used her phone more than what the mobile phone diaries showed. Out of all of her communication recorded over this four day period, only about one quarter was for communication with friends or family calls to and from her mother, brother, grandfather, grandmother, and aunt, three text messages from a friend, and one phone call from another friend. The rest consisted of text messages and phone calls from supervisors or colleagues. The women she supervised sent her messages or called her to ask questions or relay information such as the following: 1) 2) 3) 4) When will we receive our summer uniforms? Where is the key to the to stockroom? Can you help me get more pay? Im going to be late.

Supervisors called or sent messages such as: 1) Go meet the delivery truck at the gate. 2) Please change Xiao Suns position. She is not doing a good job. 3) You need to get your team members employee numbers for their insurance forms. In all cases, Zhuang Jie had to respond to these calls and messages as part of her job. If she was away from her office or if the office phone wasnt working (which seemed to 283

occur frequently), she was obligated to use her mobile. Though she could receive calls for no charge, she had to pay to make phone calls. She also had to pay for text messages, which while inexpensive could still generate a high cost due to sheer volume. It is important to stress that Zhuang Jie should not be considered a mobile worker she is employed within a small compound and moves about between two or three buildings, and she does not have the education, skills, and job tasks typically associated with mobile or telework. Furthermore, like Wu Daiyu, her cell phone is not supplied by her employer nor does her employer pay for any part of her phone usage. However, her particular relationship to her employer requires that because she has a mobile phone, she must allow her superiors to supervise her and make demands of her via her phone. In the same way, Zhuang Jies relationship to her colleagues to whom she is a supervisor but also a peer creates the conditions whereby they can monopolize her time and monitor her via her mobile phone. Zhuang Jie uses her phone in this manner with those she supervises as well. In her mobile phone diaries she logged several instances where she initiated a work-related text message exchange with certain women in her charge. For example, she sent a message to a woman who was not in the dormitory by 10:00pm one night. She also does not allow cell phones to be used in the dorm past the 10:00pm, lights out curfew. Zhuang Jies relationships to her superiors and subordinates as these are mediated through her cell phone thus bring to mind Qius wireless leash. The networks of power relations in which Zhuang Jie is situated in her workplace mean that a cell phone might decrease her autonomy even as it increases her efficiency. Still, it is important to point out that while her mobile phone is implicated in her identity as a subordinate 284

worker, it also is an important part of her identity as a low-level supervisor, a position she was very proud to have obtained. Nonetheless, as much as Zhuang Jie said she valued her phone because it enabled her to stay in touch with friends and family, she was the only woman with whom I spoke who said she would be relieved it would save her some worry (bijiao shengxin) if she didnt have a phone since at work it had become a means for colleagues and bosses to constantly page her. However, she could not get rid of her phone even if she wanted to. Her colleagues enjoy her constant availability and her employer now expects her to be always available. Just a Girl: Silence as Surveillance The last example of mobile phones and surveillance actually concerns two young women who share similar circumstances in their mobile phone use, or rather, lack of use. The point of these womens stories is to illustrate that as much as a mobile phone can be used as a medium for monitoring and control, prohibiting ownership of or confiscating a phone can serve the same purpose. In China, as Internet and cell phone usage have increased extremely rapidly, there has been a corresponding moral panic regarding what are perceived to be the ill effects of these technologies. The Internet and cell phones have been blamed for disseminating dangerous rumors, fostering unhealthy habits like gambling, and for encouraging sexual immorality through enabling illicit affairs and access to pornography. These concerns about the detrimental effects of new communication technologies are not unique to China, but they have generated considerable attention in a socio-cultural context where until quite recently mediated information was tightly controlled and an underdeveloped telecommunications infrastructure meant that most peoples ability to communicate privately via telephone 285

was rather limited. When such fears about mobile phones are linked to patriarchal modes of employee control, the ability of the mobile phone to subvert other modes of surveillance is what then becomes noteworthy. Guo Yaping was 19 and worked in her older cousins tiny shop in an alley in one of the traditional neighborhoods in the center of Beijing. Guo Yaping had been in Beijing for about a year, and she and her cousin worked at the shop everyday about 12 hours a day. She also lived with her cousin and her cousins husband. She said she had no friends in Beijing, which wasnt surprising given the extremely restricted social world in which she lived. Although Guo Yapings cousin had a cell phone, she would not allow Guo Yaping to own one. When I asked her why not she said, She is too young, and anyway, she is still learning [about the shop] and a mobile phone would distract her. She then added, One mobile phone is enough for two people.56 Although Guo Yaping was an adult, in the course of our conversation her cousin referred to her as a nave child, and she clearly assumed a parental role in Guo Yapings life even though she was probably not over 30. While Guo Yapings cousin could keep an eye on her and monitor her quite easily in the small space of the shop and the home, a mobile phone would undermine this authority and grant Guo Yaping a degree of autonomy that her cousin was not willing to let her have. Her cousin also forbade her from going to Internet cafs, saying they were dangerous places not appropriate for a young woman. Though Guo Yaping said she did not really have any interest in going to an Internet caf, she confided to me that she really wanted her own mobile phone but felt that for the time being she had to obey her cousin. Thus, once again gender and power were intertwined in techniques of control. In constructing Guo Yapings identity 286

as that of a child or a nave girl, her cousin created a discursive environment that effectively limited Guo Yapings possibilities for individual agency and autonomy in a number of realms. Li Xiulan had a situation similar to Guo Yapings. She was 17 and sold sports shoes from a stall owned by her uncle in one of Beijings large marketplaces. She also lived with her aunt and uncle, and when I met her she was only making 300 yuan per month (about $39) because after six months she was still in training. Li Xiulan owned a cell phone, but her aunt had taken it away from her even though she wasnt using it at work. Rather, her aunt had decided that she was staying up too late and sending too many text messages. Like Guo Yapings cousin, Li Xiulans aunt had taken on the role of a surrogate parent even though Li Xiulan was nearly an adult. Although I never met Li Xiulans aunt, Li Xiulan told me that her aunt treated her quite differently from her 17-year-old male cousin (Li Xiulans aunts son). Not surprisingly, he was allowed to have a cell phone. I asked Li Xiulan if she thought this was fair and she said, Of course not, but hes her son, hes a male. Thats the way it is.57 These stories are not extraordinary, but they present a contrast to much research done in developed countries about mobile phones in parent-child relationships. In much of the literature, while a mobile phone is found to be a device that allows teens a degree of freedom, parents say they feel better about their childrens safety because of the cell phone; the mobile thus provides safe autonomy.58 In the stories of Guo Yaping and Li Xiulan, however, the parental figures in their lives obviously do not see a cell phone as something that offers safety or security. Instead, they view it as the very opposite: a threat to the young womens safety as well as their ability to be monitored. A mobile 287

phone is feared for potentially allowing too much autonomy to young women that gendered power relations have discursively produced as in need of protection by an older, wiser authority figure. Here it is important to keep in mind that these young women, and especially their aunt and cousin, did not grow up in a telephone culture. They did not have landlines in their homes when they were young, the telephone did not play a role in their social lives, and their parents did not use a telephone to keep tabs on them. The mode of village life, where everyone knows what everyone else is doing, made this unnecessary even if there had been landlines. Thus, for some rural parents (or parent figures), the thought that those in their charge particularly when they are females can engage in conversations with potentially anyone via a mobile phone is not a comforting feeling. They obviously do not see a phone as providing safe autonomy but as something opening a doorway to conversations and content they cannot control. Rather than using a mobile phone as a monitoring device, they choose to ban cell phones altogether as a more expedient means of monitoring. In this way, they reify a notion of young migrant women dagongmei as passive, childlike, and vulnerable. Mobile Phones and Economic Outcomes Although in my fieldwork I did not focus extensively on the relationship between cell phones and economic outcomes, certainly ones economic status and possibilities for improvement are related to issues of identity and autonomy. Also, it seems a discussion of mobile communications, labor, and a low-income population should address in some manner the role of mobile phones in enhancing economic outcomes.59 288

Whether new communication technologies in general can increase the income of those who are socially and economically marginalized has been a pressing question in the development literature, first with the Internet and more recently with mobile phones. In the latter case, the data have been limited but thus far have shown promising results among certain populations in certain situations.60 Here again, however, issues of power cannot be ignored. Whether a migrant woman can use a cell phone to resist her marginal status, increase her income, successfully search for employment, or improve her job opportunities are all intricately connected to her identity as migrant woman and her autonomy vis--vis a number of limiting circumstances related to time, space, and institutionalized biases. These are the issues that I will explore in this last section Does a Mobile Phone Help Increase Income? To address whether mobile phones can help migrant women increase their income, I begin with two vignettes: Wang Anmei is 26 and is a small entrepreneur. She sells apples at a migrant market in the northern part of Beijing. She and her husband have been in Beijing for five years, and during this time they have expanded their business from selling only in the market to delivering apples to various restaurants and other establishments. Wang Anmei has a very basic mobile phone, with only voice and text functions. She is a very instrumental user of her phone. In her words, Im not the kind of person who thinks a mobile phone is part of who they are, like a status symbol. Its just a tool. With her phone she has been able to build up her business connections. She insists the mobile phone has helped her increase her income through enabling her to receive and deliver orders from customers whenever they call her.61 Zhao Ning is 20 and works at one of the largest and most popular marketplaces catering to foreigners in the center of one of Beijings business districts. She sells belts, wallets, and other small leather goods from a small stall owned by a Beijing resident. She works 12 hours a day and makes about 2,000 yuan per month (around $260), about double what 289

women in the other marketplaces make because of the prime location of this particular market. She has a Sony Ericsson phone with a camera and a music player. She likes to listen to music, play games, and text message with her phone. About her work she says, If I like my job, or dont like my job, its all the same. When I asked her if having a phone had helped her increase her income, she laughed and said, No way.62 As these stories are meant to illustrate, whether ownership of a mobile phone can help increase ones income depends on several factors. Wang Anmei was one of the few entrepreneurs that I interviewed in my study, and she was also one of the few married women, two details that actually are connected. Many rural women who are married decide to migrate together with their husbands. Since they usually have some savings and can pool their resources, such couples often set up small businesses in their destination. They are also able to multiply their networking capabilities and divide tasks and in this way increase their business and build up their income. Taking these factors into account should abate any sort of deterministic argument regarding mobile phones and income generation. A mobile phone did not create the conditions for Wang Anmei and her husbands success. Rather, they were able to integrate the benefits of mobile telephony into the financial, entrepreneurial, and domestic strategies they had already established. Also, since they were autonomous owners of a small business, they could take advantage of the mobile phones unique attribute its mobility to more effectively conduct their business. They were not wealthy by any means, and the bulk of their income still came from selling apples at the market. But the mobile phone allowed them a new means of connecting with customers and increasing their productivity. In this way, the cell phone brought them benefits similar to those experienced by microentrepreneurs using mobile phones in other developing countries. 290

Zhao Ning, on the other hand, was operating from a very different position socially, occupationally, and financially. She worked in a marketplace dominated by foreign tourists, not return customers, although some Russian and other Eastern Europeans would often buy clothing in bulk from such markets to bring to their home countries to sell. Unlike Wang Anmei, however, she was not running her own business and thus was not necessarily motivated to try to build up her customer base. Furthermore, she valued her mobile phone more as an entertainment device and a means of sociality rather than a tool of productivity. And perhaps most importantly, as elaborated in chapter four, her life was characterized by immobile mobility. She did not have flexibility in deciding her schedule, location, or even the type of work she did. Her lack of choice in such matters was reflected in her somewhat fatalistic statement, If I like my job, or dont like my job, its all the same. From the stories of Wang Anmei and Zhao Ning, it is clear that the connection between financial outcomes and mobile phones depends on much more than merely ownership. Rather, monetary constraints, social networks, and autonomy in decisionmaking and scheduling influence how useful a mobile phone can be for generating income. The responses of Wang Anmei and Zhao Ning were echoed by other women in my study, according to their circumstances. For example, women who worked as waitresses saw no way for a cell phone to increase their income. Women who were assistants in hair salons had a similar outlook, which greatly contrasted with their male counterparts the stylists who freely gave out their mobile phone numbers in order to build up a client base. In the markets, however, there were some women who were not small business owners who nonetheless thought a phone could enhance their income. 291

At three different marketplaces, Chen Jingfei sold bric-a-brac, reproductions of Cultural Revolution-era posters, and paintings; Sun Li offered blouses and sweaters; and Luo Judi had a wide selection of hair accessories and earrings. Each said her mobile phone had allowed her to take orders from customers, call for merchandise that was out of stock, and check on prices at other venues. Outwardly, these three women were not much different from Zhao Ning. They were young rural women, part of a flexible workforce, and were surrounded by stalls offering similar items. They also enjoyed text messaging on their phones when they werent occupied with customers. However, what they had in common that set them apart from Zhao Ning was that they were all employed by a relative: Chen Jingfei and Luo Judi by an uncle and Sun Li by her sister. They also lived with this relative, who became like a surrogate parent. In this situation, helping to increase the profits of the relative who employed them was understood as something important and a necessary duty. Given the bonds between family members, the reciprocal obligations that inhere in Chinese family relationships (how family members are part of ones affective zone as mentioned in chapter four), and the longstanding tradition in China of family-run businesses, this is perhaps not surprising. The difference between working for a relative versus a stranger was clearly articulated by Luo Jidi who said, It is always better to work for a relative. They treat you better. Again, we see an example of a technology used in certain ways as it is embedded in already existing relationships. Zhao Ning and those like her were working for the man so to speak, and thus felt no obligation to go beyond what was required of their job, even though they had pressure to sell. On the other hand, those who were employed

292

by relatives had a much different sense of obligation, which their mobile phone helped them fulfill. Mobile Phones and Job Seeking Aside from raising income, another issue is whether the women in my study used their mobile phones to search for jobs, particularly a better job. These questions cannot be understood without considering once again Chinese modes of social networking, the hierarchical character of Chinese society, and patriarchal norms and cultural biases that especially affect migrant women. As I discussed in the previous chapter, building ones guanxi network is of crucial importance in China, and this is almost always accomplished through a shared connection with another person (same hometown or province, same school or job, same dialect, and so on). In China there is the perception, if not the reality, that it is often who you know, not what you know, that matters when it comes to securing a job.63 For this reason, in addition to ones own qualifications and skills, the quality of ones social (or network) capital has important implications for the types of jobs to which a person might aspire and for whether and how easily one is able to move up the social and employment hierarchy. Mobile phones certainly enable migrant women to expand their social networks by increasing their strong and weak ties. However, they do not necessarily help them to build connections with those in higher social strata than themselves due to the customary manner in which guanxi networks are built and the rigid class and place-based distinctions that characterize contemporary Chinese society. Still, guanxi networks and kinship ties are extremely important for rural-to-urban migrants to be able to secure a job, perhaps even more so than for urban residents, 293

because of the structural barriers that migrants face in the city. Aside from legal and social discrimination, they must also be wary of unscrupulous and even violent labor practices that especially target migrant workers. There are endless stories in the commercial and state-run media in China about migrant workers being beaten or otherwise physically abused, having wages withheld, and being subject to numerous job hazards including dangerous equipment and toxic chemicals. Female migrants face further perils, for example at labor markets designed to facilitate the placement of newly arrived migrants into suitable jobs. These labor markets often become the site for predatory traffickers who lure unsuspecting migrant women with promises of jobs and then sell them as prostitutes or as wives for poor peasants who cannot afford a proper dowry.64 Not surprisingly, then, all of the migrant women I interviewed said that for their own protection they would never respond to a classified ad for a job or an anonymous job posting. This was seen as simply too risky. Instead, I was told numerous times that it is always best to go through a known entity such as a friend or relative in order to avoid being cheated. Despite these limitations, many women with whom I spoke did not seem to think it was difficult to find a new job. For example, Pan Xiao Jun, who had worked at a hair salon for the first eight months I knew her, suddenly quit her job one day. I asked her why and she said she thought the hours were too long and the pay too little (she made about 1,000 yuan per month, about $130). When I asked her how she would find another job, she shrugged her shoulders and said: I have my own way of doing things and I always have. I quit my job even though others might not dare. Im not worried about finding a new job because I am young and I know they need people like me in these jobs.65 294

I then asked her if she thought her mobile phone could help her in any way to find a job, and she said she might use it to contact friends, but not to contact a stranger. Her answer reveals that certainly the mobile phone could be used for the task of finding a job, but only if a relationship is already in place. Thus, it is not the mobile phone that is the key, but the social networks that rural-to-urban migrants have always relied upon to facilitate their employment in the city, long before the arrival of cell phones. The phone could just as easily be a landline for this purpose, although of course a mobile phone makes such contact significantly more convenient. The situation described above is therefore similar to the findings of Heather Horst and Daniel Miller in their study of cell phone use by low-income Jamaicans. They also found that due to the nature of social relationships in Jamaica and the vulnerability of the low-income population, the perception was that in seeking employment it was always best to meet someone face-toface and to go through some sort of personal connection.66 Though it might be easy for a migrant woman to find a job, the jobs available to most migrant women are rather limited. It is extremely difficult for a migrant woman to move up the job hierarchy precisely because of her status as a migrant woman. The breezy confidence expressed in the quote above by Pan Xiao Jun about her ability to find another job should therefore be taken with a measure of skepticism. She certainly could find another job, probably without too much trouble, through relying on friends and word of mouth. Whether this would be a better job is another matter, particularly given the line of work she was in. In fact, shortly before I left Beijing Pan Xiao Jun had returned to the original salon where she had been employed. Even the migrant women I 295

knew who had attended various computer courses and other types of training with few exceptions were not able to convert these skills into better employment. This does not mean they might not in the future, but for the time being they tended to remain in the same job they had had prior to the training or in a similar line of work. Conclusion An examination of the way mobile phones are integrated into the labor relations of young migrant women working in the low-level service sector in Beijing reveals a complex array of discourses, tactics, and strategies that are produced by gender-, class-, and place-based power relations. In this chapter I have attempted to show how the mobile phone is implicated in these power relations that circulate in and through the work lives of migrant women precisely because they are migrant women. The jobs they have and the degree of regimentation, training, and regulation to which they must submit, as well as the gendered discourses that surround them, are all technologies of power that shape their identity and attempt to mold them into compliant female peasant workers. For some migrant women, a mobile phone can become one tool of many for enabling autonomy and various tactics of resistance. However, cell phones can also be used by both the women themselves and their employers to sustain gendered power relations and forms of control. Of particular importance is that the examples of resistance via cell phones highlighted in this chapter are largely individual and symbolic, and as such might give a migrant woman a feeling of temporary, fleeting empowerment while not changing or challenging the deeply embedded structural impediments and patriarchal cultural norms 296

that negatively affect her. While I was in Beijing, I did hear rumors of factory workers in southern China using mobile phones to send information to colleagues about higher wages in another factory or mobilizing to demand more pay from their own employers. Where there is a large workforce, mobile phones clearly can be used by workers to mobilize for collective action in the same way they have been used in political movements in the Philippines, Spain, and more recently, Myanmar. However, most of the women in my study worked in small enterprises. Many had no colleagues, most had three to eight, and the largest restaurants and hair salons employed perhaps twenty people. Could a mobile phone be used by any of these women to receive or pass on information about a better job elsewhere? Of course it could, but only as it is used within the social networks which these women are a part. Still, many of the women I knew who worked at marketplaces hoped to eventually one day open their own businesses back in their hometown. It seems that a mobile phone will be a crucial tool for enabling them to maintain and expand the networks that will be necessary for this to happen in the future.

297

Chapter Five Endnotes 1. I borrow the phrase from Ithiel de Sola Pool, though he used it long before the advent of the widespread use of mobile phones in everyday life. In Technologies of Freedom he raised concerns about the tension between government regulation and individual freedom. 2. Katz, Magic in the Air, 8. 3. Winner, Do Artifacts Have Politics? 20. 4. Ibid., 22. 5. It should be noted that in January 2008 a new labor law went into effect that mandated labor contracts, severance pay, and a higher minimum wage, yet implementation, especially in small enterprises in the private sector (where all of the women in this study worked), will most likely be uneven and difficult to enforce. 6. Urban women and college educated women also face gender discrimination in employment. See, for example, Lu Zhiye Xingbie. 7. See, for example, Zhang, Behind the Great Firewall; Zittrain and Edelman, Empirical Analysis of Internet. For a media account of the human factor in Chinese Internet censorship, see French, As Chinese Students Go Online. 8. Jia and Weber, State, Power and Mobile Communication. 9. Qiu, The Wireless Leash, 76. On p. 83 Qiu gives as an example of such broadcasting of a message generated by the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department wishing China Mobile users a happy May Day in 2005. 10. Ibid., 82. 11. Chinas Mobile Network. 12. Qiu, The Wireless Leash, 85. 13. Foucault, Power and Strategies, 139-40. 14. Ibid., 337, 340. 15. Ibid., 341. 16. Mohanty, Feminism without Borders, 142, 143. 298

17. Ibid., 235. 18. Foucault, History of Sexuality, 95. 19. Foucault, The Subject and Power, 340. 20. Ibid., 342. 21. De Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 36. 22. Ibid., 37. 23. Ibid. 24. These campaigns have been aimed at everything from eradicating spitting in public to monthly queuing days that encourage people to stand in orderly lines while waiting for public transportation. 25. Bartky, Foucault, Femininity, and Patriarchal Power, 65. 26. Lee, Gender and the South China Miracle, 9. 27. Ibid., 128. 28. Pun, Made in China, see chapter three especially. 29. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 152-153. 30. Pun, 106. 31. Ibid., 116. 32. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 222. 33. Ibid., 143, 145. 34. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, 119, 123. 35. The stories of banqueting and eating out of the public funds are legion and a major source of concern about official corruption since in China the line between private entrepreneurship and government bureaucracy is indeed tenuous. As much research has shown, those who have prospered the most in the market economy in China are those who were able to parlay their party affiliation and/or government position into lucrative business opportunities. See, for example, Liu, Otherness of Self. 299

36. Ibid. 37. Interview with Ji Hua, Beijing, December 2, 2006. 38. See, for example, Katz, Magic in the Air, 87-101. 39. Interview with Luo Li Kun, Beijing, December 7, 2006. 40. Interview with Tan Fenfang, Beijing, March 21, 2007. 41. I should note that use of fictive kin terms is common practice in China and was not unique to the marketplaces. It is not only young women who call older young men older brother. A young man may address an older young woman as big sister. Such naming is meant to show a degree of familiarity but also maintains status hierarchies. 42. Spielberg, Myth of Nimble Fingers. 43. Interview with Huang Hui An, Lanzhou Market, April 6, 2007. 44. Massey, Space, Place, and Gender, 4. 45. Interview with Huang Hui An, Lanzhou Market, April 6, 2007. 46. Katz, Magic in the Air, 58. 47. Ibid., 59. 48. Pun, Made in China, 61. 49. De Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 30. 50. See, for example, Kim, Korea: Personal Meanings; see also Laurier, Region as a Socio-technical Accomplishment. 51. Green, Whos Watching Whom? 37. 52. Ito, Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, 139; Ling, Mobile Connection, 100. 53. Interview with Wu Daiyu, Beijing, March 23, 2007. 54. A bus ticket for an hours journey probably cost her one or two Chinese yuan. A cab after 9:00pm would have probably cost about 35 yuan. Migrant workers never take taxis unless it is a dire emergency. 300

55. Interview with Wu Daiyu, Beijing, April 4, 2007. 56. Interview with Guo Yapings cousin, December 4, 2006, Beijing. 57. Her exact response in Chinese was, Dangran bu pingdeng, danshi ta shi ta de erzi. Ta shi nande, mei banfa. Mei banfa literally means no solution but in the context Li Xiulan meant that there was no solution to the inequality between males and females in China and thus I have translated mei banfa as thats the way it is. Interview with Li Xiulan, Beijing, April 19, 2007. 58. Castells et al., Mobile Communication and Society, 247. 59. As I write this, the April 13, 2008 issue of the New York Times Magazine has a feature story titled, Can the Cell phone End Global Poverty? 60. See, for example, Abraham, Mobile Phones and Economic Development; see also Donner, Social and Economic Implications. 61. Interview with Wang Anmei, Beijing, April 11, 2007. 62. Interview with Zhao Ning, Beijing, April 5, 2007. 63. See, for example, the work of Bian, including Institutional Holes. 64. Bu and Qiu, Report on Media Education Strategies. 65. Interview with Pan Xiao Jun, Beijing, December 4, 2006. 66. Horst and Miller, The Cell Phone, 103.

301

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION Underlying this dissertation are two profound transformations one taking place within a country and one spanning the globe that are indicative of the forces that constitute our current era. In China, the phenomena of globalization, urbanization, migration, and marketization have radically altered many peoples ways of being and understanding themselves in the world. At the same time, worldwide the extensive diffusion of mobile telephony has ushered in new modes of individual and collective identity, sociality, autonomy, and agency. In order to understand more fully one particular intersection of such processes and transformations, this research examined how young rural-to-urban migrant women working in the low-level service sector in Beijing use mobile phones to negotiate their identity and create meaning in relation to themselves and others in the city. Particularly among youth populations across various cultures, the mobile phone has been configured as a crucial tool for the presentation of the self, for distinguishing and maintaining group solidarity and boundaries, for signifying style, and for undermining parental and school authority. A growing body of research has therefore posited the existence of universal understandings and practices associated with cell phones and young people. While noting certain similarities, other studies have cautioned that mobile phone usage must be understood as it arises within a given socio-cultural context. Either way, in the bulk of the research thus far these mobile, global youth are all fairly well educated (or in the process of becoming so), relatively well off, and predominantly located in developed countries. On the other hand, scholarly inquiry into 302

cell phone use among low-income populations and/or in developing countries has tended to foreground economic outcomes while paying little attention to social aspects, even though it is becoming apparent that these two are often hard to separate.1 To address this gap and to add to the growing body of research on mobile telephony, this study explored how young migrant women a youth population that is extremely socially and economically marginalized use cell phones in myriad ways as they navigate their lives in Beijing. I sought to understand how a specific discursive context China in the new millennium produces particular power relations and constructions of gender, class, and place, which in turn give rise to certain usages and understandings of technology. To accomplish this goal, I conducted 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Beijing, which involved interviews, participant observation, numerous casual and in-depth conversations, and a set of mobile phone diaries. What emerged from the research was a particular rendering of communication as transmission and ritual, and a portrait of mobility and immobility of people, technology, ideas, and desires as they are constitutive of the construction of multiple facets of identity. Summary of the Findings Understanding migrant womens engagement with mobile phones necessitates locating this relationship within Chinas current quest for modernity and development. Within modernities, various power relations and positionalities produce both complimentary and contradictory understandings and practices of being modern in the world. Chinas reform path of the last few decades and the institutional barriers enacted through the rigid hukou policy have created a vast gap in living standards and life opportunities between urban and rural residents. They have also resulted in positioning 303

the geographical terrain of the countryside and its residents as devoid of culture and mired in stagnation and tradition. Within this milieu, the urban then becomes the source of progress, and by extension the location for modern consumer practices, lifestyles, and resources namely technology. For young rural women in Beijing themselves configured as backward and of low quality possession of a mobile phone serves as a form of symbolic capital, signifying their entry, however constrained, into urban modernity and offering a means of at least partially shedding their rural essence. Though this urban identity can never be complete as every migrant woman assured me this study shows that a cell phone is an important part of migrant womens constructing a hybrid rural-urban identity. As part of being modern, cell phones are also linked to dominant notions of gender that have arisen in parallel with the growth of Chinas consumer society. Just as marketization has tended to relegate women to certain occupations, it has also placed renewed emphasis on the sexualization and commodification of womens bodies, in contrast to the Maoist past. Ubiquitous discourses of essentialized gender stress womens natural traits such as grace and gentleness and promote certain notions of inner and outer beauty. In this study, a mobile phone was often connected to these gendered discourses in the way it was supposed to look (pretty), the manner in which it was used by women (chatting as opposed to passing on information via text messaging, or gaming), and the way it was spoken about. In the same way, mobile phones are constitutive of a modern discourse in which possession of technology and technological competence is linked to ideologies of knowledge, development, and quality (suzhi). For this reason mobile phones serve not 304

only as a form of symbolic capital but also cultural capital in the sense that they demand certain skills, literacies, and etiquette. A lack of proficiency in any of these potentially subjects users to disciplining by friends or coworkers and reinforces marginalization. In addition to the mobile phones overt connection to a particular type of modernity, and to symbolic and cultural capital, in chapter four I discussed numerous socio-techno practices associated with mobile phone use by migrant women. As a lens for understanding the way mobile phones are integrated into norms of relationship building, I drew a link between social capital, Chinese concepts of self, and guanxi practices. Because most migrant women do not have easy access to a landline, cell phones provide them with an important means for expanding their social networks, and this is most often accomplished in accordance with guanxi principles. The names in their mobile phones almost always have some form of shared (tong) relationship to themselves a colleague, person from the same hometown or province, a classmate, and so on. Perhaps even more important than the expanded social networks enabled by the mobile phone, however, is the way migrant women use cell phones to enrich their social networks. Given the constraints on womens time, the circumscribed social world they occupy in the city, and the far distances that often separate them from those with whom they are emotionally close, the ability to surpass these spatial, temporal, and structural barriers, through what I call the immobile mobility provided by the cell phone, is extremely important. Thus, the cell phone appears not only as a supportive communication device, but more often what I call an expansive communication tool used to keep in touch with friends near and far that are both geographically unreachable. 305

Immobile mobility enabled by cell phones is not just a means for engaging in meaningless exchange of short text messages or jokes; it is a significant way for women to ease the sometimes devastating loneliness and isolation they experience in the city. Immobile mobility also appears in the way women use camera phones to express desires, to asset their own sense of aesthetics, and to plan for a better future. And, of course, many migrant women were planning their own future through exercising agency and autonomy in dating decisions. As a very personal device, the cell phone allows them to explore their sexual identity and to develop intimate relationships, yet still within existing cultural norms; that is, through a blending of technological (the mobile phone) and traditional (intermediaries were widely used). The long-term nature of these relationships, maintained almost strictly through the phone, again exemplifies the cell phone as an expansive communication tool used to transform selves and articulate emotions and desires. In chapter five, I more explicitly looked at the power relationships in which the mobile phone is integrated by examining its role in migrant womens workplace politics and practices. Migrant women are predominantly positioned in low-skill, low-wage, low-status jobs as a result of gender and place-based discourses. While workplace rules and disciplines certainly vary, many women are employed in jobs that give them very little autonomy while at the workplace. When a phone is prohibited as a means of workplace control and efficiency, some women still bring their phones to work as a form of resistance. Such symbolic resistance certainly does not change the power relations of the workplace, and if caught a woman could be jeopardizing her income and 306

even her job, while her boss, of course, has nothing to lose. Nonetheless, the mobile phone is associated once again with agency just by mere possession. In this regard, mobile phones provide a means of psychological empowerment. Especially in the large marketplaces, cell phones are also used to ward off boredom and to assert ones own sense of self, even at the detriment of other colleagues or customers who are ignored. However, employers also use mobile phones to exercise their power in relation to migrant women. In the worst case, with Wu Daiyu, an employer was able to inflict rather severe emotional distress on a woman through manipulation and accusation. In other cases, the original intention of the cell phone keeping in touch with family and friends became gradually usurped, not in a malicious way, but in a manner that nonetheless rendered it a very different device than what the user had intended. In still other instances, employers (who were relatives) enacted a form of surveillance through prohibiting ownership altogether. In this way, they can maintain their authority and prevent the autonomy that they fear the cell phone offers. A final issue regarding cell phones and labor that was explored was whether a mobile phone enables women to increase their income, and thereby gain a degree of autonomy vis--vis the larger society. The evidence from this study indicates that unless a woman is a micro-entrepreneur a cell phone does not enhance economic outcomes, due to migrant womens positionality in the labor force. However, some women are definitely using their phones in planning for the future by, for example, archiving professional achievements with the phones camera, or gathering a network of strong and weak ties that might be useful for a hoped-for future business either in Beijing or back home in the countryside. 307

Significance of the Research Based on the above discussion, the question now is what do we learn from these womens stories? What does a very localized study of a particular group of women tell us about larger societal transformations and about the role of mobile communication in these? How does this study add to our knowledge about the intersection of gender, identity, technology, and power? There are several key contributions that this study makes, and in combination they refuse simplistic binaries of inclusion vs. exclusion, emancipation vs. subjugation, and agency vs. control in understandings of technology and society. First, within processes of migration, particularly in the context of wide-scale urbanization, uneven technology diffusion, rapid societal transformation, and extremely disparate access to social and economic resources among different segments of the population, the connectivity provided through the mobile phone should not be underestimated. This critical access is extremely significant given the temporal, spatial, and institutional constraints placed on groups such as migrant women. Connectivity means communication, which lies at the heart of the social world, and such connectivity allows migrants often isolated, often discriminated against an anchoring and inclusion in networks of sociality that are crucial to their well-being in the city. In this regard, the sheer convenience of the cell phone is not a trivial matter. For most migrant women, the mobile phone is not just one more communication device added to a fixedline phone and/or a computer with Internet access. It is their primary, if not only, means of keeping in touch with others. Certainly prior to the arrival of the cell phone, migrant workers remained in contact with family and very close friends, through using public 308

phones, writing letters, with pagers, and so forth. However, the transformation in ease and frequency of access facilitated via the mobile phone is hard to fathom for those of us who have been surrounded by ubiquitous telephony our entire lives. For migrant women, and most likely for other populations with similarly constrained material circumstances, inclusion in social networks via the mobile phone thus serves as a counter-domination tactic against such limiting and limited life conditions. Second, this research suggests that a notion of socio-techno practices forecloses deterministic arguments regarding technology as something sweeping in and creating radical changes to social and cultural life regardless of human agency. At the same time, understanding how socio-techno practices are grounded in the material conditions of everyday life allows insight into the constitutive nature of identity and technology. As a mobile phone is embedded in a particular discursive context a particular assemblage it is articulated to myriad practices, representations, and feelings that are productive of identity in this context. Thus, to say that for migrant women the mobile phone is part of forming a modern identity means that the cell phone is articulated to a sense of selfhood associated with urban life and not the countryside. In another context, such an articulation might not occur; likewise, to say that a mobile phone is cool or fashionable does not mean the same thing as saying it is modern. A focus on socio-techno practices also enables us to see how identity, sociality, and technology are intricately connected. Identity is not a solely individual project; rather, people shape themselves in relation to others in various ways, in this case through mobile phones. Thus, mobile phones are integrated into current social practices such as guanxi that dictate appropriate notions of relation building and sociability. 309

At the same time, a cell phone opens up new possibilities for the enactment of social practices. Alternate spaces give rise to transformations, rather than ruptures, as evidenced in the way migrant women use mobile phones for dating and intimacy. Still, socio-techno practices may be implicated in new modes of exclusion when, for example, certain users are not proficient in competencies and rules that arise in relation to technology. Third, and closely related to the above point, this study sheds light on the constitutive nature of gender, technology, and power. Unlike several previous feminist critiques of technology, what this study reveals is that it is not that women are left out in relations of technology. Migrant women certainly participate in Chinas mobile revolution and this participation is important not only for their inclusion in sociality, but also as a way for them to understand and affirm their gender identity. The manner in which this gender identity is expressed particularly through emphasis on the feminine appearance of the phone shows that technology also has a disciplining function. As a mobile phone is embedded in notions of dominant femininity, it serves to reproduce and create new disciplinary practices of femininity. Thus, Foucaults notion of technologies of the self is particularly relevant to the technology of the cell phone. Mobile phones are a transmission device, yet they are also employed to effect change on ones mental or physical body, in this case in alignment with essentialized notions of gender. While women participate in mobile telephony in equal numbers to men, at the same time, unequal material conditions of men and women the result of structural impediments and social constructions of gender mean that certain womens access to and usage of technology are more constrained. If we read this as resulting only from 310

economic factors we miss the larger way in which power operates to create a discursive context that produces not only gendered practices but also gendered understandings of technology use. These gendered discourses, which intersect with constructions of class and place, circulate at the most mundane level to perpetuate asymmetries in men and womens relationship to technology. Given that mobile phones can help to reify class and gender differences and exclusions, does this mean a mobile phone is just another consumer item, the desire for which operates to subsume capitalisms extraction of migrant womens surplus labor while promising superficial transformative possibilities? In several studies of migrants in different cultures, scholars point to migrant workers participation in exploitative labor as evidence that they are deceived (or duped) into laboring only to use the fruits of their work to perpetuate the very system that exploits them. Of course, cell phones do encourage the capitalist consumption that would be impossible without the labor of the docile body of the migrant worker. However, this argument is both problematic and simplistic. It presents once again the scholar with the view from nowhere (in Susan Bordos words) whose own labor somehow does not reproduce a less than perfect system, and whose own consumption practices do not enable the very relations of global capital they are critiquing. This study argues that rather than being configured as one more ruse of capital, mobile phones should be seen as an important way for people to construct identity, engage in important modes of sociality, and exercise agency and autonomy in decisions regarding time, money, leisure, and intimacy. In other words, the mobile phone is

311

embedded in myriad forms of personal meaning and transformation, and brings many forms of pleasure. A final contribution of this study is in regards to the connection between technology, womens autonomy, and social change in China. Clearly mobile phones do not by their mere existence fundamentally alter the structural and material conditions that serve both to enable and constrain possibilities for personal autonomy or societal change. Just as with the question of whether migration itself enables greater autonomy for Chinese rural women, the connection between mobile phones and womens autonomy does not have a singular answer since autonomy is rarely all or nothing; rather, there are degrees of autonomy. Certainly the existence of increasing numbers of migrants in Chinas cities has troubled the binaries of urban and rural that are entrenched in Chinese culture. In the same way, the presence of rural women in cities has slowly chipped away at patriarchal traditions that inhibit their autonomy. Although generally speaking in the city young migrant women are in positions of weakness vis--vis their employers and the overall society, their use of mobile phones nonetheless challenges patriarchal norms. While their cell phone resistance in the workplace is largely symbolic, their use of mobile phones to build up contacts for future employment and business opportunities is one way women are attempting to transform their position in the larger society. Perhaps migrant womens autonomy in dating decisions is the most significant challenge to rural traditions regarding young women. Though rural marital practices can vary according to region, in many cases young womens choices in marriage can be extremely constrained. In chapter four I cited research that showed the unpredictability of whether romantic relationships that women 312

establish in the city will outlast their sojourn there, yet the fact is that ever larger numbers of migrant women are using mobile phones to establish and maintain intimate relationships. This phenomenon, in connection to the reality that more and more women are staying longer or permanently in the city, implies there is reason to believe these relationships will last. Thus, while these uses of mobile phones do not destroy patriarchy, they certainly can challenge and weaken its grip. This study has several implications for cultural studies, feminist theory, and studies of new communication technologies. In particular it adds to the body of scholarship that insists that practices and understandings of new communication technologies must be studied not only among a certain age group or gender, but as these are intricately connected to and arise within a particular discursive context. In this way, we can see similarities in technology use across cultures and also extract the fine nuances and diverse shades of meaning that technologies have for different groups, thereby creating a richer, thicker understanding of technological culture. This research also shows that to study the connection between technology and identity necessitates examining multiple facets of identity and myriad ways in which identity is constructed in relation to self and others. Finally, this research reveals that studying the mobility of people and technology may be as much about studying conditions of immobility. This fieldwork examined one particular group of women rural women working in Beijings low-level service sector to explore how mobile phones are increasingly playing a role in the constitution of identity and the transformation of the self. There is still much research to be done regarding the role of cell phones in Chinese life, 313

including among other groups of migrant women and among Chinas 55 (non-Han) ethnic minorities. As some migrant women eventually return home, whether and how mobile telephony enables long-term changes in their lives is another important question. In the same way, as the Chinese government continues to make a more concerted effort to try and close the ever-widening disparities between urban and rural areas, one focus of their policies has been bringing both fixed-line and mobile telephony to the countryside. As such, the manner in which young rural men and women engage with mobile phones will be a rich field for exploration. Will it mean the mobile phone will no longer be configured as an implement of urban modernity? As the urban is associated with progress and development, so too it is likely that the mobile phone will be understood by rural young people as the modern coming to the countryside. Yet, what other meanings will mobile phones have to those in rural areas? Could a greater flow of information and connectivity help break down the rigid divide between the city and the countryside? As mobile telephony spreads as part of an overall development strategy, will this help to erase not only urban-rural disparities but also discursive constructions of the countryside as hopelessly backward? As these questions reveal, there is still much to be learned about the mobile phone among migrants, the rural populace, and the larger Chinese society. In closing, a recent event in China perhaps best captures the significance of this research and the importance of mobile phone scholarship more generally. On May 12, 2008 at approximately 2:28 pm Beijing time, an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck Chinas Wenchuan County in Sichuan Province. The quake was the most devastating in recent Chinese history at the time of this writing there are nearly 314

70,000 dead, close to 18,000 missing, hundreds of thousands injured, and millions left homeless. 2 As the news of this quake continues to dominate the foreign and Chinese media, it is hard to miss how this tragic event has brought to the fore several aspects of this study, including the significant role of cell phones to transmit information and to connect across distances; the vast inequalities between Chinas rural and urban areas, developed and less developed regions, and haves and have-nots (hundreds of rural schools collapsed killing close to 9,000 children, mostly from poor families, while government buildings and schools for wealthier children largely remained standing); and the heart-wrenching anxiety of migrant workers from Sichuan, many in Beijing, who were separated from children or other family members and could only wonder about their fate. Of the hundreds of news stories the earthquake has generated, there is one that profoundly communicates how the cell phone is intimately connected to identity and personal meaning. According to the Xinhua news agency, one day after the quake, inside the rubble of a collapsed building soldiers found a tiny baby. The baby had miraculously survived, protected by its mother, who did not. Tucked into the babys blanket was a mobile phone displaying the following text message: My dear, if you survive, remember I love you.3 For all of these reasons and more, the mobile phone, as it is connected to peoples sense of who they are in relation to themselves and others, in life and even in death matters.

315

Conclusion Endnotes 1. Donner Mobile Behaviors of Kigalis Microentrepreneurs; Horst and Miller, The Cell Phone. 2. http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2008-06-08/160115705516.shtml. 3. http://www.sc.xinhuanet.com/content/2008-05/17/content_13288295.htm. For a report in English, see Block, Emotional Aftershocks.

316

REFERENCES Abraham, Reuban. "Mobile Phones and Economic Development: Evidence from the Fishing Industry in India." Paper presented at the International Conference on Information and Communications Technologies and Development, Berkeley, CA, (May 25-26, 2006). Alcoff, Linda. "Cultural Feminism Versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory." In The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory, edited by Linda Nicholson, 330-55. New York: Routledge, 1997. Anagnost, Ann. "Transformations of Gender in Modern China." In Gender and Anthropology: Critical Reviews for Research and Teaching, edited by Sandra Morgan, 313-42. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association, 1989. Anonymous. "I Want Your Text." New York Magazine, April 3, 2006, 64. Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Asian Development Bank. "Reducing Inequalities in China Requires Inclusive Growth." (August 9, 2007), http://www.adb.org/media/Articles/2007/12084-chineseeconomics-growths/. Banet-Weiser, Sarah. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity. Berkeley: University of California, 1999. . Kids Rule!: Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. Banks, Ingrid. Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Womens Consciousness. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Barlow, Tani. "Theorizing Woman: Fun, Guojia, Jiating (Chinese Women, Chinese State, Chinese Family)." In Feminism and History, edited by Joan Wallach Scott, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Bartky, Sandra Lee. "Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power." In Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression, 48-75. New York: Routledge, 1990. Baudrillard, Jean. "Simulacra and Simulations." In Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, edited by Mark Poster, 166-84. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. 317

. "The Ideological Genesis of Needs." In The Consumer Society Reader, edited by Juliet B. Schor and Douglas B. Holt, 57-80. New York: The New Press, 2000. Beech, Hannah. "Sex and the Single Chinese." Time online (December 5, 2005), http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1137697 ,00.html. Behar, Ruth. "Introduction: Out of Exile." In Women Writing Culture, edited by Ruth Behar and Deborah A. Gordon, 1-29. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Berman, Marshall. All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982. Bettie, Julie. Women without Class: Girls, Race, and Identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Beynon, Louise. "Dilemmas of the Heart: Rural Working Women and Their Hopes for the Future." In On the Move: Women and Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, edited by Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka, 131-50. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. Bian, Yanjie. "Institutional Holes and Job Mobility Processes: Guanxi Mechanisms in Chinas Emergent Labor Markets." In Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi edited by Thomas Gold, Doug Guthrie and David L. Wank, 117-35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Bijker, Wiebe E. Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change. Boston: MIT Press, 1995. Bird, Elizabeth. The Audience in Everyday Life: Living in a Media World New York: Routledge, 2003. Block, Melissa. "Emotional Aftershocks." National Public Radio (May 18, 2008), http://www.npr.org/blogs/chengdu/2008/05/emotional_after_shocks.html. Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. 318

______. "The Forms of Capital." In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, 241-58. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986. . "The Social Definition of Photography." In Visual Culture: The Reader, edited by Jessica Evans and Stuart Hall, 162-80. London: Sage, 1999. Bourdieu, Pierre, and Loc J. D. Wacquant. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Brownell, Susan. "Gender and Nationalism in China at the Turn of the Millennium." In China Briefing 2000: The Continuing Transformation, edited by Tyrene White, 195-232. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. Brownell, Susan, and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom. "Introduction: Theorizing Femininities and Masculinities." In Chinese Femininities, Chinese Masculinities, edited by Susan Brownell and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, 1-46. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Bu, Wei, and Jack Linchuan Qiu. "Report on Media Education Strategies for the Prevention of Trafficking in Women in Sichuan Province." 2002. Burgin, Victor. "Art, Common Sense and Photography." In Visual Culture: The Reader, edited by Jessica Evans and Stuart Hall, 41-50. London: Sage, 1999. Butler, Judith Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990/1999. Calhoun, Craig. "Social Theory and the Politics of Identity." In Social Theory and the Politics of Identity, edited by Craig Calhoun, 9-36. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994. Canclini, Nestor. Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural Conflicts. Translated by George Yudice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. Carey, James. Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society New York: Routledge, 1989. Carroll, Jennie, Steve Howard, Jane Peck, and John Murphy. "A Field Study of Perceptions and Use of Mobile Telephones by 16 to 22 Year Olds." Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application 4, no. 2 (2004): 49-60.

319

Cartier, Carolyn, Manuel Castells, and Jack Linchuan Qiu. "The Information HaveLess: Inequality, Mobility, and Translocal Networks in Chinese Cities." Studies in Comparative International Development 40, no. 2 (2005): 9-34. Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society. 2nd ed. Oxford Blackwell Publishers, 2000. . "Informationalism, Networks, and the Network Society: A Theoretical Blueprint." In The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Manuel Castells, 3-45. Northampton, MA: Edward Elger Publishers, 2003. . The Power of Identity. 2nd ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell 2004. Castells, Manuel, Mireia Fernandez-Ardevol, Jack Linchuan Qiu, and Araba Sey. Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective The Information Revolution & Global Politics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. "Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for Indian Pasts?" Representations 37 (1992): 1-26. Chan, Anita, Richard Madsen, and Jonathan Unger. Chen Village under Mao and Deng: Expanded and Updated Edition. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Cheng, Tiejun, and Mark Seldon. "The Origins and Social Consequences of China's Hukou System." The China Quarterly 139 (1994): 644-68. China Ministry of Information Industry. "2007 National Communications Industry Development Statistical Report." (February 4, 2007) [in Chinese] http://www.mii.gov.cn//art/2008/02/04/art_2001_36139.html. "Chinas Mobile Network: A Big Brother Surveillance Tool." (January 26, 2008), http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hymd7FGqkoxuoNDCZdq_QwISBPQw. "China Orders 6 Telecoms to Merge Their Assets." New York Times, (May 26, 2008), http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/worldbusiness/26telecom.html. "Chinese Expected to Send 17 Billion Text Messages During Spring Festival." (Feb. 7, 2008), http://english.sina.com/china/1/2008/0207/145269.html. Chu, Wai-chi, and Shanhua Yang. "Mobile Phones and New Migrant Workers in a South China Village: An Initial Analysis of the Interplay between the 'Social' and the 'Technological.'" In New Technologies in Global Societies, edited by Pui-lam Law, Leopoldina Fortunati and Shanhua Yang, 221-44. Singapore: World Scientific, 2006. 320

Cingular Wireless. "Guys Still Gab More on Wireless." (2003), http://cingular.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=818. Clifford, James. "Introduction: Partial Truths." In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus, 1-26. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. . "On Ethnographic Authority." In The Predicament of Culture: TwentiethCentury Ethnography, Literature, and Art edited by James Clifford, 21-54. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. Cockburn, Cynthia. "The Circuit of Technology: Gender, Identity and Power." In Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces, edited by Roger Silverstone and Eric Hirsch, 32-47. London: Routledge, 1992. Cohen, Kris, and Nina Wakeford. "The Making of Mobility, the Making of Self." INCITE, University of Surrey in Collaboration with Sapient, (June 2003). Cohen, Myron. "Cultural and Political Inventions in Modern China: The Case of the Chinese Peasant'." In China in Transformation, edited by Wei-ming Tu, 154-55. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Connelly, Rachel, Kenneth Roberts, Xie Zhenming, and Zheng Zhenzhen. "Waichu Dagong Dui Nongcun Fun Diwei De Yingxiang (The Impact of Migration on the Position of Rural Woman)." In Renkou Liudong Yu Nongcun Fun Fazhan (Migration and Rural Womens Development), edited by Zheng Zhenzhen and Xie Zhenming, 151-74. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2004. Crenshaw, Kimberl W. "Beyond Racism and Misogyny: Black Feminism and 2 Live Crew." In Feminist Social Thought: A Reader, edited by Diana Tietjens Meyers, 246-63. New York: Routledge, 1997. Croll, Elisabeth. Chinese Women since Mao. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1983. Davis, Deborah. "Introduction: A Revolution in Consumption." In The Consumer Revolution in Urban China, edited by Deborah Davis, 1-22. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. . "Urban Consumer Culture." The China Quarterly 183 (2005): 692-709. Davis, Deborah, and Stevan Harrell. "Introduction: The Impact of Post-Mao Reforms on Family Life." In Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era, edited by Deborah Davis and Stevan Harrell, 1-22. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

321

De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. De Lauretis, Teresa. Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction Bloomington, ID: Indiana University Press, 1987. Donner, Jonathan. "What Mobile Phones Mean to Rwandan Entrepreneurs." In Mobile Democracy: Essays on Society, Self and Politics, edited by Kristof Nyiri, 393410. Vienna: Passagen-Verlag, 2003. . "The Mobile Behaviors of Kigali's Microentrepreneurs: Whom They Call... And Why." In A Sense of Place: The Global and the Local in Mobile Communication, edited by Kristof Nyiri, 295-301. Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 2005. Du Gay, Paul, Stuart Hall, Linda Janes, Hugh MacKay, and Keith Negus. Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage, 1997. Edge, David "The Social Shaping of Technology." In Information Technology and Society: A Reader, edited by Neal Heap, Ray Thomas, Geoff Einon, Robin Mason and Hugh Mackay, 14-32. London: Sage, 1995. Ellwood-Clayton, Bella. "Virtual Strangers: Young Love and Texting in the Filipino Archipelago of Cyberspace." In Mobile Democracy: Essays on Society, Self and Politics, edited by Kristof Nyiri, 225-235. Vienna: Passagen-Verlag, 2003. Evans, Harriet. Women and Sexuality in China: Female Sexuality and Gender since 1949 New York: Continuum, 1997. . "Marketing Femininity: Images of the Modern Chinese Woman." In China Beyond the Headlines, edited by Timothy B. Weston and Lionel M. Jensen, 21044. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000. . "Past, Perfect or Imperfect: Changing Images of the Ideal Wife." In Chinese Femininities/Chinese Masculinities, edited by Susan Brownell and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, 335-60. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. . "Fashions and Feminine Consumption." In Consuming China: Approaches to Cultural Change in Contemporary China, edited by Kevin Latham, Stuart Thompson and Jakob Klein, 173-89. New York: Routledge, 2006. Ewen, Stuart. All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture. New York: Basic Books, 1988.

322

Fan, C. Cindy. "Migration and Gender in China." In China Review 2000, edited by Chunming Lau and Jianfa Shen, 434-35. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2000. . "Out to the City and Back to the Village: The Experiences and Contributions of Rural Women Migrating from Sichuan and Anhui." In On the Move: Women and Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, edited by Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka, 177-206. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Fan, Jie and Wolfgang Taubmann. "Migrant Enclaves in Large Chinese Cities." In The New Chinese City: Globalization and Market Reform, edited by John R. Logan, 183-97. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002. Farrer, James. "Sexual Citizenship and the Politics of Sexual Storytelling among Chinese Youth." In Sex and Sexuality in China, edited by Elaine Jeffreys, 102123. London: Routledge, 2006. Featherstone, Mike. "Postmodernism and the Aestheticization of Everyday Life." In Modernity and Identity, edited by Scott Lash and Jonathan Friedman, 265-90. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Fei, Xiaotong. From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society. Translated by Gary G. Hamilton and Zheng Wang. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Felski, Rita. The Gender of Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Feng, Xu. Women Migrant Workers in Chinas Economic Reform. New York: St. Martins Press, 2000. Fischer, Claude. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Fortunati, Leopoldina. "Italy: Stereotypes, True and False." In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, edited by James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus, 42-62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. . "The Mobile Phone: Local and Global Dimensions." In A Sense of Place: The Global and the Local in Mobile Communication, edited by Kristof Nyiri, 61-70. Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 2005. Foucault, Michel. "Two Lectures." In Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, edited by Colin Gordon, 78-108. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. 323

. "Power and Strategies." In Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, edited by Colin Gordon, 134-45. New York: Pantheon Book, 1980. . "Technologies of the Self." In Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, edited by Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton, 1649. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988. . The History of Sexuality an Introduction: Volume 1. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. . "Governmentality." In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, edited by Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller, 87-104. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. . Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison Translated by Alan Sheridan. 2nd ed. New York: Random House, 1995. . "The Subject and Power." In Power: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Volume Three, edited by James Faubion, 326-48. New York: The New Press, 2000. Fox, Kate. "Evolution, Alienation and Gossip, the Role of Mobile Communications in the 21st Century." (2001), http://www.sirc.org/publik/gossip.shtml. Frello, Birgitta. "Dark Blood: Essentialism, Hybridism and Cultural Critique." Paper presented at the Cultural Studies Now Conference, University of East London, (July 19-22, 2007). French, Howard "In Chinese Boomtown, Middle Class Pushes Back." New York Times, (December 18, 2006), www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/world/asia/18shenzhen.html. French, Howard. "As Chinese Students Go Online, Little Sister Is Watching." New York Times, (May 9, 2006), http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/world/asia/09internet.html. Friedman, Jonathan. "The Hybridization of Roots and the Abhorrence of the Bush." In Spaces of Culture: City-Nation-World, edited by Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, 230-56. London: Sage, 1999. Friedman, Sara L. "Spoken Pleasures and Dangerous Desires: Sexuality, Marriage, and the State in Rural Southeastern China." East Asia: An International Quarterly 18, no. 4 (2000): 13-39. 324

Fujimoto, Kenichi. "The Third-Stage Paradigm: Territory Machines from the Girls Pager Revolution to Mobile Aesthetics." In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda, 77-101. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. Furth, Charlotte. "Blood, Body, and Gender: Medical Images of the Female Condition in China, 1600-1850." In Chinese Femininities, Chinese Masculinities, edited by Susan Brownell and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, 291-314. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Gaetano, Arianne M. "Filial Daughters, Modern Women: Migrant Domestic Workers in Post-Mao Beijing." In On the Move: Women and Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, edited by Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka, 41-79. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. . "Off the Farm: Rural Chinese Women's Experiences of Labor Mobility and Modernity in Post-Mao China (1984-2002)." Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Southern California, 2005. Geertz, Clifford. "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture " In The Interpretation of Cultures, 3-30. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Gergen, Kenneth J. "The Challenge of Absent Presence." In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, edited by James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus, 227-41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. . "Self and Community in the New Floating Worlds." In Mobile Democracy: Essays on Society, Self and Politics, edited by Kristof Nyiri, 103-14. Vienna: Passagen-Verlag, 2003. Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990. Ginzberg, Carlo. "Clues: Morelli, Freud, and Sherlock Holmes." In The Sign of Three: Dupin, Holmes, Pierce, edited by Umberto Eco and Thomas A. Sebeok, 81-118. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983. Goffman, Erving. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York: Anchor Books, 1961. Gold, Thomas, Doug Guthrie, and David L. Wank. "An Introduction to the Study of Guanxi." In Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi, edited by Thomas Gold, Doug Guthrie and David L. Wank, 3-20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 325

Goldstein, Joshua L. "Introduction." In Everyday Modernity in China, edited by Madeleine Yue Dong and Joshua L. Goldstein, 3-21. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2006. Goldstein, Sidney, Liang Zai, and Alice Goldstein. "Migration, Gender, and Labor Force in Hubei Province, 1985-1990." In Re-Drawing Boundaries: Work, Households, and Gender in China, edited by Barbara Entwistle and Gail E. Henderson, 214-30. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Gray, Ann. Research Practice for Cultural Studies: Ethnographic Methods and Lived Cultures. London: Sage, 2003. Green, Nicola. "Who's Watching Whom? Monitoring and Accountability in Mobile Relations." In Wireless World: Social and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age, edited by Barry Brown, Nicola Green and Richard Harper, 32-45. London: Springer, 2002. . "Outwardly Mobile: Young People and Mobile Technologies." In Machines That Become Us: The Social Context of Personal Communication Technology edited by James E. Katz, 201-17. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003. Gries, Peter Hays, and Stanley Rosen. "Introduction: Popular Protest and State Legitimation in 21st Century China." In Introduction: Popular Protest and State Legitimation in 21st Century China, edited by Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen, 1-23. New York: Routledge, 2004. Hall, Stuart. "Ethnicity: Identity and Difference." In Becoming National: A Reader, edited by Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, 339-49. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. . "Introduction: Who Needs Identity?" In Questions of Cultural Identity, edited by Stuart Hall and Paul Du Gay, 1-17. London: Sage, 1996. Hall, Stuart, and Lawrence Grossberg. "On Postmodernism and Articulation: An Interview with Stuart Hall." In Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies edited by David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, 131-59. London: Routledge, 1996. Hamilton, Gary G., and Zheng Wang. "Introduction." In From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society: A Translation of Xiangtu Zhongguo by Fei Xiaotong, 1-36. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Hanser, Amy. "The Gendered Rice Bowl: The Sexual Politics of Service Work in Urban China." Gender & Society 19, no. 5 (2005): 581-600. 326

Hartsock, Nancy. "The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism." In Feminist Social Thought: A Reader, edited by Diana Tietjens Meyers, 462-83. New York: Routledge, 1997. Harwit, Eric. "China's Telecommunications Industry: Development Patterns and Policies." Pacific Affairs 71, no. 2 (1998): 175-93. He, Zhou. "A History of Telecommunications in China: Development and Policy Implications." In Telecommunications and Development in China, edited by Paul S. N. Lee, 55-87. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1997. Hodgson, Dorothy L. "Introduction: Of Modernity/Modernities Gender, and Ethnography." In Gendered Modernities: Ethnographic Perspectives, edited by Dorothy L. Hodgson, 1-23. New York: Palgrave, 2001. Honig, Emily, and Gail Hershatter. Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980's. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988. Hooper, Beverley. ""Flower Vase and Housewife": Women and Consumerism in PostMao China." In Gender and Power in Affluent Asia, edited by Krishna Sen and Maila Stivens, 167-93. London: Routledge, 1998. Horst, Heather A. and Daniel Miller. The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication. New York, NY: Berg, 2006. Huang, Xiyi. "Divided Gender, Divided Women: Sate Policy and the Labor Market." In Women of China: Economic and Social Transformation, edited by Jackie West, Minghua Zhao, Xiangqun Chang and Yuan Cheng, 90-107. New York: Palgrave Publishers, 1999. Hwang, Kwang-huo. "Face and Favor: The Chinese Power Game " American Journal of Sociology 92 (1987): 944-74. IDC. "What Makes Mobile Users Tick? The Underlying Factors of Mobile Phone Usage and Purchase Criteria (2005), http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS00022105. Ito, Mizuko. "Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and the Re-Placement of Social Contact." In Mobile Communications: Re-Negotiation of the Social Sphere, edited by Rich Ling and Per E. Pedersen, 131-48. London: Springer, 2005. . "Introduction: Personal, Portable, Pedestrian." In Introduction: Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, 1-16. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. 327

. "A New Set of Rules for a Newly Wireless Society." Japan Media Review (February 14, 2003), http://www.japanmediareview.com/japan/wireless/1043770650.php. . "Personal Portable Pedestrian: Lessons from Japanese Mobile Phone Use. Paper presented at the Mobile Communication and Social Change Conference, Seoul, South Korea (October 18-19, 2004). Ito, Mizuko, and Daisuke Okabe. "Technosocial Situations: Emergent Structuring of Mobile E-Mail Use." In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda, 257-73. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005. Jacka, Tamara. "Back to the Wok: Women and Employment in Chinese Industry in the 1980s." The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 24 (1990): 1-23. . Rural Women in Urban China: Gender, Migration, and Social Change. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2005. Jia, Lu, and Ian Weber. "State, Power and Mobile Communication: A Case Study of China." New Media and Society 9, no. 6 (2007): 925-44. Johnsen, Truls Erik. "The Social Context of the Mobile Phone Use of Norwegian Teens." In Machines That Become Us: The Social Context of Personal Communication Technology, edited by James E. Katz, 161-69. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003. Kang, Millian. "The Managed Hand: The Commercialization of Bodies and Emotions in Korean-Owned Nail Salons." Gender & Society 17 (2003): 820-39. Kasesniemi, Eija-Liisa, and Pirjo Rautiainen. "Mobile Culture of Children and Teenagers in Finland." In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, edited by James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus, 170-92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Katz, James. Magic in the Air: Mobile Communication and the Transformation of Social Life New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2006. Katz, James E., and Mark Aakhus. "Conclusion: Making Meaning of Mobiles - A Theory of Apparatgeist." In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, edited by James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus, 301-18. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

328

Katz, James E., and Satomi Sugiyama. "Mobile Phones as Fashion Statements: The CoCreation of Mobile Communications Public Meaning." (2005), http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/ci/cmcs/publications/articles/mobile%20phones%2 0as%20fashion%20statements.pdf. Kendall, Laurel. "Introduction." In Under Construction: The Gendering of Modernity, Class and Consumption in the Republic of Korea, edited by Laurel Kendall, 124. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2002. Khan, Azizur Rahman, and Carl Riskin. Inequality and Poverty in the Age of Globalization. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001. . "Chinas Household Income and Its Distribution, 1995 and 2002." The China Quarterly 182 (2005): 356-84. Kim, Shin Dong. "Korea: Personal Meanings." In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, edited by James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus, 63-79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. King, Ambrose Yeo-chi. "Kuan-Hsi and Network Building: A Sociological Interpretation." Daedalus 120, no. 2 (1991): 63-84. Kipnis, Andrew B. Producing Guanxi: Sentiment, Self, and Subculture in a North China Village. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997. . "Suzhi: A Keyword Approach." The China Quarterly 186 (2006): 295-313. Knight, John, and Lina Song. The Rural-Urban Divide: Economic Disparities and Interactions in China. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999. Laurier, Eric. "Why People Say Where They Are During Mobile Phone Calls." (2000), http://web.geog.gla.ac.uk/~elaurier/texts/whypeople.pdf. . "The Region as a Socio-Technical Accomplishment of Mobile Workers." In Wireless World: Social and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age, edited by Barry Brown, Eileen Green and Richard Harper, 46-61. London: SpringerVerlag, 2002. Law, Pui-lam, and Yinni Peng. "The Use of Mobile Phones among Migrant Workers in Southern China." In New Technologies in Global Societies, edited by Pui-lam Law, Leopoldina Fortunati and Shanhua Yang, 245-58. Singapore: World Scientific Press, 2006. Lee, Ching Kwan. Gender and the South China Miracle: Two Worlds of Factory Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. 329

Lee, Paul S. N. "Telecommunications and Development: An Introduction." In Telecommunications and Development in China, edited by Paul S. N. Lee, 3-20. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1997. . "Uneven Development of Telecommunications in China." In Telecommunications and Development in China, edited by Paul S. N. Lee. Cresskill, NJ: 113-129, 1997. Lei, Guang. "Rural Taste, Urban Fashions: The Cultural Politics of Rural/Urban Difference in Contemporary China." positions: east asia cultures critique 11, no. 3 (2003): 613-46. Lemish, Dafna, and Akiba A. Cohen. "On the Gendered Nature of the Mobile Phone Culture in Israel." Sex Roles: A Journal of Research 52, no. 7/8 (2005): 511-21. Lemke, Thomas. "Foucault, Governmentality, and Critique." In Rethinking Marxism. University of Amherst, (September 21-24, 2000). Li, Mingzhi and Wang Jin. "Chinas Telecommunications Universal Service in a Competitive Environment." In United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research Project Conference: Spatial Inequality in Asia. Tokyo, March 28-29, 2003. Li, Qiang. "Wo Guo Chengshihua He Liudong Renkou De Jige Lilun Wenti (Theoretical Questions on Chinese Urbanization and the Floating Population)." In Jincheng Nongmingong: Xianzhuang, Qushi, Women Neng Zuo Xie Shenme (Rural-to-Urban Migrants: Situations, Trends and What We Can Do), 176-85. Beijing: Peoples University Institute for Agriculture and Rural Development, 2006. Li, Shi. "Labor Migration and Income Distribution in Rural China." In Chinas Retreat from Equality: Income Distribution and Economic Transition, edited by Carl Riskin, Renwei Zhao and Shi Li, 303-28. Armonk: NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001. Li, Tao. "Nongmingong Liudong Guochengzhong De Xuqiu Yu Zhangai (Demands and Barriers in the Flow of Migrant Workers). In Liudong he Ronghe: Nongmingong Gonggong Zhengce Gaige Yu Fuwu Chuangxin Lunji (Migration and Integration: Analects on Public Policy Reform and Service Innovation for Migrant Workers, edited by Li Zhen, 6-27. Beijing: Unity Press, 2005. Li, Weitao. "Phone Firms Tapping into Rural Areas." China Daily March 14, 2006.

330

Liang, Xiongjian, and Wei Zhang. "Services." In Telecommunications in China: Development and Prospects, edited by Lin Jingtong, Liang Xiongjian and Wan Yan, 99-125. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2001. Liang, Xiongjian and Yang Xu. "Networks." In Telecommunications in China: Development and Prospects, edited by Lin Jingtong, Liang Xiongjian and Wan Yan, 1-46. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2001. Lin, Angel. "Romance and Sexual Ideologies in SMS Manuals Circulating among Migrant Workers in Southern China." In Mobile Communication and Asian Modernities Conference. Hong Kong, (June 6-7, 2005). Ling, L.H.M. "Sex Machine: Global Hypermasculinity and Images of the Asian Woman in Modernity." positions: east asia cultures critique 7, no. 2 (1999): 277-306. Ling, Rich. "Fashion and Vulgarity in the Adoption of the Mobile Telephone among Teens in Norway." In Mediating the Human Body: Technology, Communication, and Fashion, edited by Leopoldina Fortunati, James E. Katz and Raimonda Riccini, 93-102. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. Ling, Rich. The Mobile Connection: The Cell Phone's Impact on Society, The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive Technologies. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 2004. Ling, Rich and Birgitte Yttri. "Hyper-Coordination Via Mobile Phones in Norway." In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, edited by James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus, 139-69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Ling, Rich, and Birgitte Yttri. "Control, Emancipation and Status: The Mobile Telephone in the Teens' Parental and Peer Relationships." In Computers, Phones, and the Internet: Domesticating Information Technology, edited by Robert Kraut, Malcolm Brynin and Sara Kiesler, 219-34. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Ling, Rich, Birgitte Yttri, Ben Anderson, and Deborah DiDuca. "Mobile Communication and Social Capital in Europe." In Mobile Democracy: Essays on Society, Self and Politics, edited by Kristof Nyiri, 359-74. Vienna PassagenVerlag, 2003. Liu, Xin. The Otherness of Self: A Genealogy of the Self in Contemporary China. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002.

331

"Liudong Baozhangbu Diaocha: Nongmingong Shouru Piandi Qianxin Reng Cunzai (Ministry of Labor and Social Security Report: Migrant Workers Pay Is on the Low Side, Back Pay Still Exists, (February 6, 2007), http://gov.people.com.cn/GB/46737/5369775.html. Lobet-Maris, Claire. "Mobile Phone Tribes: Youth and Social Identity." In Mediating the Human Body: Technology, Communication, and Fashion, edited by Leopoldina Fortunati, James E. Katz and Raimonda Riccini, 87-92. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. Loo, Betty P. Y. "Telecommunications Reforms in China: Toward an Analytical Framework." Telecommunications Policy 28 (2004): 697-714. Lorber, Judith. "Believing Is Seeing: Biology as Ideology." In The Politics of Womens Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, & Behavior edited by Rose Weitz, 12-24. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Lotz, Amanda D. "Assessing Qualitative Television Audience Research: Incorporating Feminist and Anthropological Theoretical Innovation." Communication Theory 10, no. 4 (2000): 447-67. Lu, Fangwen. " Zhiye Xingbie Qishi: Yuanyin He Duice - Tan Ndaxuesheng, Nyanjiusheng Weihe Zhao Gongzuo Nan (Sexual Discrimination in Occupations: Causes and Coping Measures Why Women Undergraduates and Postgraduates Have Difficulty Finding Work)." Fun Yanjiu Luncong (Collection of Womens Studies) 4 (2000): 4-9. Lu, Hanlong. "To Be Relatively Comfortable in an Egalitarian Society." In The Consumer Revolution in Urban China, edited by Deborah S. Davis, 124-41. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000. Lu, Xueyi, ed. Dangdai Zhongguo Shehui Jieceng Yanjiu Baogao (Research Report on Social Stratification in Contemporary China). Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Document Press, 2002. Lynch, Daniel C. "The Nature and Consequences of Chinas Unique Pattern of Telecommunications Development." In Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China, edited by Chin-Chuan Lee, 179-207. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2000. Ma, Eric, and Hau Ling "Helen" Cheng. Naked Bodies: Experimenting with Intimate Relations among Migrant Workers in South China." International Journal of Cultural Studies 8, no. 3 (2005): 307-28.

332

Mackay, Hughie and Gareth Gillespie. "Extending the Social Shaping of Technology: Ideology and Appropriation." Social Studies of Science 22, no. 4 (1992): 685716. MacLeod, Calum. "China Vaults Past USA in Internet Users." USA Today, (April 21, 2008), http://www.usatoday.com/tech/world/2008-04-20-Internetusers_N.htm. Mallee, Hein. "Migration, Hukou and Resistance in Reform China." In Chinese Society: Change, Conflict, and Resistance (2nd ed.), edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Seldon, 136-57. London: Routledge, 2003. Marquand, Robert. "In China, Stresses Spill over into Riots." Christian Science Monitor, (November 22, 2004) http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1122/p01s03woap.html. Massey, Doreen. Space, Place, and Gender Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. Matei, Soren, and Sandra Ball-Rokeach. "Belonging in Geographic, Ethnic, and Internet Spaces." In The Internet in Everyday Life, edited by Barry Wellman and Caroline Haythornthwaite, 404-27. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002. Matsuda, Misa. "Mobile Communication and Selective Sociality." In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda, 123-42. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005. . "Discourses of Keitai in Japan." In Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda, 19-39. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge, 1995. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extension of Man Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. Mueller, Milton, and Zixiang Tan. China in the Information Age: Telecommunications and the Dilemmas of Reform. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.

333

Murph, Darren. "Mobile Phone Subscriptions Hit 3.3 Billion." (November 29, 2007), http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/29/mobile-phone-subscriptions-hit-3-3billion. Murphy, Patrick D., and Marwin M. Kraidy. "International Communication, Ethnography, and the Challenge of Globalization." Communication Theory 13, no. 3 (2002): 304-23. Murphy, Rachel. How Migrant Labor Is Changing Rural China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Nafus, Dawn, and Karina Tracey. "Mobile Phone Consumption and Concepts of Personhood." In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, edited by James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus, 206-21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Nordli, Hege, and Srensen. Knut. "Diffusion as Inclusion? How Adult Men and Women Become Users of Mobile Phones." 2003. SIGIS Deliverable Number: DO5. Appendix 2.15, NTNU4, IST-2000-26329SIGIS, http://www.rcss.ed.ac.uk/sigis/public/documents/SIGIS_D05_2.15_NTNU4.pdf. Nystedt, Dan. "China Mobile Posts Strong 2007 Growth, Gains Music, Users." Washington Post, (March 23, 2008), http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/03/23/AR2008032 300447.html. Okabe, Daisuke, and Mizuko Ito. "Everyday Contexts of Camera Phone Use: Steps toward Techno-Social Ethnographic Frameworks." In Mobile Communication in Everyday Life: Ethnographic Views, Observations and Reflections, edited by Joachim R. Hoflich and Maren Hartmann, 79-102. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2006. Oksman, V., and P. Rautiainen. "Extension of the Hand: Childrens and Teenagers Relationship with the Mobile Phone in Finland." In Mediating the Human Body: Technology, Communication, and Fashion, edited by Leopoldina Fortunati, James E. Katz and R. Riccini, 103-11. Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. Oksman, Virpi, and Pirjo Rautiainen. ""Perhaps It's a Body Part:" How the Mobile Phone Became an Organic Part of the Everyday Lives of Finnish Children and Teenagers." In Machines That Become Us: The Social Context of Personal Communication Technology, edited by James E. Katz, 293-308. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003.

334

Pan, Suiming. "Transformations in the Primary Life Cycle: The Origins and Nature of China's Sexual Revolution." In Sex and Sexuality in China, edited by Elaine Jeffreys, 21-42. London: Routledge, 2006. Pan, Suiming, William Parish, Wang Aili, and Edward Laumann. Dangdai Zhongguoren De Xing Xingwei Yu Xin Guanxi (Sexual Behavior and Relations in Contemporary China) Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2004. "Peripheral Citizens the 2nd Generation Migrant Worker." (2005), www.china.org.cn/english/2005/Dec/153200.htm. Pertierra, Raul. "Mobile Phones, Identity and Discursive Intimacy." Human Technology 1, no. 1 (2005): 23-44. Plant, Sadie. "On the Mobile: The Effects of Mobile Telephones on Social and Individual Life." (2002), http://www.motorola.com/mot/doc/0/267_MotDoc.pdf. Pool, Ithiel de Sola. Technologies of Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Bellknap Press, 1983. Potter, Sulamith Heins, and Jack M. Potter. China's Peasants: The Anthropology of a Revolution. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pritz, Lin. "Intimacy Fiction: Intimate Discourses in Mobile Telephone Communication Amongst Norwegian Youth." In A Sense of Place: The Global and the Local in Mobile Communication, edited by Kristof Nyiri, 191-200. Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 2005. Pun, Ngai. "Subsumption or Consumption? The Phantom of Consumer Revolution In "Globalizing" China." Cultural Anthropology 18, no. 4 (2003): 469-92. . Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace. Durham, NC: Duke University Press 2005. Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. Qiu, Jack Linchuan. "(Dis)Connecting the Pearl River Delta: The Transformation of a Regional Telecommunications Infrastructure, 1978-2000 Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Southern California, 2004. . "The Wireless Leash: Mobile Messaging Service as a Means of Control." International Journal of Communication 1 (2007): 74-91. 335

. "The Accidental Accomplishment of Little Smart." New Media and Society 9, no. 6 (2007): 903-23. "Residency Reforms to Allow Better Flow of Laborers." People's Daily, (September 29, 2001), www.china.org.cn/english/DO-e/19836.htm. Rheingold, Howard. "Will the Telephone's Transition from Appliance to Fashion Accessory Change the Ways We Think of Ourselves and Interact with Each Other?" (2004), http://www.thefeature.com/article?articleid=101246&ref=6592595. Riley, Denise. Am I That Name? Feminism and the Category of Women in History Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. Riley, Nancy. "Interwoven Lives: Parents, Marriage, and Guanxi in China." Journal of Marriage and the Family 56 (1994): 791-803. . "Gender Equality in China: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back." In China Briefing: The Contradictions of Change, edited by William A. Joseph, 79-108. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. Rivire, Carol. "Mobile Camera Phones: A New Form of 'Being Together' in Daily Interpersonal Communication." In Mobile Communications: Re-Negotiation of the Social Sphere, edited by Rich Ling and Per E. Pedersen, 167-77. London: Springer, 2005. Robbins, Kathleen A. and Martha A. Turner. "United States: Popular, Pragmatic and Problematic." In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, edited by James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus, 80-93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Robinson, Jean C. "Of Women and Washing Machines: Employment, Housework, and the Reproduction of Motherhood in Socialist China." The China Quarterly 101 (1985): 32-57. Rofel, Lisa. Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999. Rosen, Stanley. "The State of Youth/Youth and the State in Early 21st-Century China: The Triumph of the Urban Rich?" In State and Society in 21st-Century China: Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation, edited by Stanley Rosen and Peter Hays Gries, 158-79. New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004.

336

Sangwan, Sunanda, and Louis-Francois Pau. "Diffusion of Mobile Phones in China." Rotterdam: Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM Report Series Reference #ERS-2005-056-LIS (2005). Scott, Joan Wallach "Experience." In Feminists Theorize the Political, edited by Judith Butler and Joan Wallach Scott, 22-40. New York: Routledge, 1992. Skog, Berit. "Mobiles and the Norwegian Teen: Identity, Gender and Class." In Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance, edited by James E. Katz and Mark Aakhus, 255-73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Slack, Jennifer Daryl. "The Theory and Method of Articulation in Cultural Studies." In Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies edited by David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, 112-27. London: Routledge, 1996. Slack, Jennifer Daryl, and J. MacGregor Wise. Culture + Technology: A Primer New York: Peter Lang, 2005. Solinger, Dorothy J. Contesting Citizenship in Urban China: Peasant Migrants, the State, and the Logic of the Market. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Song, Lina. "The Role of Women in Labor Migration: A Case in Northern China." In Women of China: Economic and Social Transformation, edited by Jackie West, Minghua Zhao, Cheng Xiangqun and Cheng Yuan, 69-89. New York: Palgrave, 1999. . "Gender Effects on Household Resource Allocation in Rural China." In Chinas Retreat from Equality: Income Distribution and Economic Transition, edited by Carl Riskin, Renwei Zhao and Shi Li, 276-302. M. E. Sharpe: Armonk, NY, 2001. Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Picador, 1977. Spielberg, Elinor. "The Myth of Nimble Fingers." In No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade, and the Rights of Garment Workers, edited by Andrew Ross, 113-22. New York: Verso, 1997. Stacey, Judith. Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Stacey, Judith. "Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?" Womens Studies International Forum 11, no. 1 (1988): 21-27. 337

Sugiyama, Satomi, and James E. Katz. "Social Conduct, Social Capital and the Mobile Phone in the U.S. And Japan." In Mobile Democracy: Essays on Society, Self and Politics, edited by Kristof Nyiri, 375-86. Vienna: Passagen-Verlag, 2003. Sui, Helen. "Reconstituting Dowry and Brideprice in South China." In Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era, edited by Deborah Davis and Stevan Harrell, 165-88. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Sun, Wanning. "Indoctrinization, Fetishization, and Compassion: Media Constructions of the Migrant Woman." In On the Move: Women and Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, edited by Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka, 109-28. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Tan, Shen. "Leaving Home and Coming Back: Experiences of Rural Migrant Women." In Holding up Half the Sky: Chinese Women Past, Present, and Future, edited by Jie Tao, Bijun Zheng and Shirley L. Mow, 248-58. New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2004. Tan, Shen. "Nxing Liudong Yu Xingbie Pingdeng (Female Population Migration and Gender Equality)." In Jincheng Nongmingong: Xianzhuang, Qushi, Women Neng Zuo Xie Shenme (Rural-to-Urban Migrants: Situations, Trends and What We Can Do) 238-55. Beijing: Peoples University Institute for Agriculture and Rural Development, 2006. Taylor, Alex S., and Richard Harper. "The Gift of Gab?: A Design Oriented Sociology of Young People's Use of Mobiles." Computer Supported Cooperative Work 12 (2003): 267-96. Townsend, Anthony. "Mobile Communication in the Twenty-First Century City." In Wireless World: Social and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age, edited by Barry Brown, Nicola Green and Richard Harper, 62-77. London: SpringerVerlag, 2002. Turchetti, David. "SMS Craze Unlocks Way to Youth Hearts but Tread Carefully." Media (March 7, 2003). Ureta, Sebastian. "The Immobile Mobility: Spatial Mobility and Mobile Phone Use among Low-Income Families in Santiago, Chile." Paper presented at the 5th Wireless World Conference, University of Surrey, UK (July 15-16, 2004). . "Evanescent Connection: Spatial Immobility, Social Exclusion and Mobile Phone Use among Low Income Families in Santiago, Chile." Paper presented at the Annenberg Research Network on International Communication, University of Southern California, (April, 2005). 338

Van House, Nancy A., and Marc Davis. "The Social Life of Cameraphone Images." Paper presented at the Pervasive Image Capture and Sharing: New Social Practices and Implications for Technology Workshop at the Seventh International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2005) Tokyo, Japan (September 11-14, 2005). Visweswaran, Kamala. Fictions of Feminist Ethnography Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. Volti, Rudi. Technology, Politics, and Society in China, Westview Special Studies on China and East Asia. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982. Wall, Ellen, Gabriele Ferrazzi, and Frans Schryer. "Getting the Goods on Social Capital." Rural Sociology 63, no. 2 (1998): 300-22. Wallis, Cara. "Chinese Women in the Official Chinese Press: Discursive Constructions of Gender in Service to the State." Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 3, no. 1 (2006): 95-109. Wang, Chunguang. "Nongmingong De Banchengshihua' Wenti (The Problem of Peasant Workers 'Semi-Urbanization'). In Liudong He Ronghe: Nongmingong Gonggong Zhengce Gaige Yu Fuwu Chuangxin Lunji (Migration and Integration: Analects on Public Policy Reform and Service Innovation for Migrant Workers), edited by Zhen Li, 41-57. Beijing: Unity Press, 2005. Wang, Feng. "Gendered Migration and the Migration of Genders in Contemporary China." In Re-Drawing Boundaries: Work, Households, and Gender in China, edited by Barbara Entwistle and Gail E. Henderson, 231-42. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Wang, Fei-Ling. Organizing through Division and Exclusion: China's Hukou System. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005. Wang, Jing. "Youth Culture, Music, and Cell Phone Branding in China." Global Media and Communication 1, no. 2 (2005): 185-201. Watney, Simon. "On the Institutions of Photography." In Visual Culture: The Reader, edited by Jessica Evans and Stuart Hall, 141-61. London: Sage, 1999. Watson, James L., ed. Class and Social Stratification in Post-Revolution China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 1984.

339

Weilenmann, Alexandra, and Catrine Larsson. "Local Use and Sharing of Mobile Phones." In Wireless World: Social and Interactional Aspects of the Mobile Age, edited by Barry Brown, Nicola Green and Richard Harper, 92-107. London: Springer, 2002. Wellman, Barry, Anabel Quan Haase, James Witte, and Keith Hampton. "Does the Internet Increase, Decrease, or Supplement Social Capital?" American Behavioral Scientist 45, no. 3 (2001): 436-55. Whyte, Martin King. "Changes in Mate Choice in Chengdu." In Chinese Society on the Eve of Tiananmen: The Impact of Reform, edited by Deborah Davis and Ezra F. Vogel, 181-213. Cambridge, MA: The Council on East Asian Studies/Harvard University, 1990. Wilson, Scott. "Face, Norms, and Instrumentality." In Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi, edited by Thomas Gold, Doug Guthrie and David L. Wank, 163-77. Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press, 2002. Winner, Langdon. "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" In The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology, 19-39. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Wolf, Margery. Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985. Xia, Dai. "Liudong Renkou Gongzi Shouru Yinxiang Yinsuzhong De Xingbie Chayi Yi Xiamenshi Liudong Fun Weili (Sexual Difference in Factors Affecting the Wage Earnings of the Floating Population a Case Study of the Migrant Women in Xiamen City)." Fun Yanjiu Luncong (Collection of Womens Studies), 6, no. 68 (2005): 14-19. Xinhua. "Beijings Population Exceeds 17.4 Million." (December 4, 2007), http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/04/content_7197045.htm. . "Backgrounder: Challenges in Chinas Rural Development." (December, 22, 2007), http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-12/22/content_7294072.htm. Xu, Xiaohe. "The Social Origins of Historical Changes in Freedom of Mate Choice under State Socialism." In Social Transition in China, edited by Jie Zhang and Xiaobing Li, 35-60. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998. Yan, Hairong. "Neoliberal Governmentality and Neohumanism: Organizing Suzhi/Value Flow through Labor Recruitment Networks." Cultural Anthropology 18, no. 4 (2003): 493-523. 340

. "Spectralization of the Rural: Reinterpreting the Labor Mobility of Rural Young Women in Post-Mao China." American Ethnologist 30, no. 4 (2003): 578-96. Yan, Wan. "Sector Reform." In Telecommunications in China: Development and Prospects, edited by Lin Jintong, Liang Xiongjian and Wan Yan, 145-83. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2001. Yan, Xu, and Xiongjian Liang. "Policy and Regulations." In Telecommunications in China: Development and Prospects, edited by Lin Jingtong, Liang Xiongjian and Wan Yan, 127144. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2001. Yan, Yunxiang. The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996. . "McDonald's in Beijing: The Localization of Americana." In Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia, edited by James L. Watson, 39-76. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. . "The Politics of Consumerism in Chinese Society." In China Briefing 2000: The Continuing Transformation, edited by Tyrene White. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000. . "Courtship, Love and Premarital Sex in a North China Village." The China Journal 48 (2002): 29-53. . Private Life under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village, 1949-1999. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003. Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui. Gifts, Favors, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China, The Wilder House Series in Politics, History, and Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994. . "Introduction." In Spaces of Their Own: Womens Public Sphere in Transnational China, edited by Mayfair Mei-hui Yang. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995. . "From Gender Erasure to Gender Difference: State Feminism, Consumer Sexuality, and Womens Public Sphere in China." In Spaces of Their Own: Womens Public Sphere in Transnational China, edited by Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, 35-67. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.

341

Yang, Shanhua, and Wai-chi Chu. "Shouji: Quanqiuhua Beijingxia De Zhudong XuanzeZhusanjiao Diqu Nongmingong Shouji Xiaofei De Wenhua He Xintai De Jiedu (Mobile Phone: Selecting Their Own Initiative under the Background of Globalization). In Jincheng Nongmingong: Xianzhuang, Qushi, Women Neng Zuo Xie Shenme (Rural-Urban Migrants: Situations, Trends and What we can do), 301-308. Beijing: Peoples University Institute for Agriculture and Rural Development, 2006. Yoon, Kyongwon. "Retraditionalizing the Mobile: Young Peoples Sociality and Mobile Phone Use in Seoul, Korea." European Journal of Cultural Studies 6, no. 33 (2003): 327-43. Young, Marilyn. "Chicken Little in China: Women after the Cultural Revolution." In Promissory Notes: Women in the Transition to Socialism edited by Sonia Kruks, Rayna Rapp and Marilyn Young, 233-47. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1989. Yu, LiAnne, and Tai Hou Tng. "Culture and Design for Mobile Phones in China." In Machines That Become Us: The Social Context of Personal Communication Technology, edited by James E. Katz, 187-98. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003. Yue, Zhen. "Mobile Phone Demonstrates Individuality: New Expressions of Todays Hand-Phone Culture." Beijing Morning Post (February 24, 2003), http://mobile.tom.com/Archive/1145/2003/2/24-53731.html. Zang, Xiaowei. "Social Resources, Class Habitus and Friendship Ties in Urban China." Journal of Sociology 42, no. 1 (2006): 79-92. Zhang, Li. "The Interplay of Gender, Space, and Work in Chinas Floating Population." In Re-Drawing Boundaries: Work, Households, and Gender in China edited by Barbara Entwistle and Gail H. Henderson, 171-96. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. . Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks within China's Floating Population. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. . "Contesting Crime, Order, and Migrant Spaces in Beijing." In China Urban: Ethnographies of Contemporary Culture, edited by Nancy C. Chen, Constance D. Clark, Suzanne Z. Gottschang and Lyn Jeffery, 201-22. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001.

342

. "Urban Experiences and Social Belonging among Chinese Rural Migrants." In Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing Society, edited by Perry Link, Richard Madsen and Paul Pickowicz, 275-99. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001. . "Spatiality and Urban Citizenship in Late Socialist China." Public Culture 14, no. 2 (2002): 311-34. Zhang, Lena. "Behind the Great Firewall'." Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 12, no. 3 (2006): 271-91. Zhang, Zhen. "Mediating Time: The "Rice Bowl of Youth" In Fin De Sicle Urban China." Public Culture 12, no. 1 (2000): 93-113. Zhao, Yaohui. "Rural-to-Urban Migration in China: The Past and the Present." In Rural Labor Flows in China edited by Loraine A. West and Yaohui Zhao, 15-33. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Zheng, Zhenzhen. "Waichu Jingli Dui Nongcun Fun Chuhun Nianling De Yingxiang (Migration and Age at First Marriage)." In Renkou Liudong Yu Nongcun Fun Fazhan (Migration and Rural Womens Development), edited by Zhenzhen Zheng and Xie Zhenming, 195-99. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2004. Zittrain, Jonathan, and Benjamin Edelman. "Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China." Cambridge, MA: Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, 2003.

343

APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE This interview is designed to gather information about your use of new communication technologies. In the first part, you will be asked some general background questions about yourself. In the second part, you will be asked about your traditional media use as well as your use of such devices as mobile phones, computers, and portable music players. The information you provide in this interview will be kept confidential. All of your answers are voluntary. You may skip any questions you do not want to answer. Background Questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. How did you first decide to come to Beijing? Did you already know anyone in Beijing? How did you find a job? What were your original goals in coming here? Have they changed since youve been here? 5. How long have you been here? 6. How long do you think you will stay? 7. What year were you born? Traditional Media 8. Which newspapers, if any, do you read on a regular basis? 9. Which magazines, if any, do you read on a regular basis? 10. Which television shows, if any, do you watch on a regular basis? 11. Which radio stations, if any, do you listen to on a regular basis? Technology Questions: Mobile Phones: 12. Do you own a mobile phone? (If yes to question 12, the interviewee will be asked questions 13 27) 13. When did you first get a mobile phone? 14. Do you have a service contract or a pre-paid phone? 15. What kind of mobile phone do you have? 16. How did you decide to buy this type of mobile phone? 17. Have you personalized your phone in any way (with phone jewelry, wallpaper, ringtones, etc.)? If yes, how did you choose these personalized aspects? 18. What do you mainly use your phone for (e.g. calling, texting, taking pictures, etc.)? 19. With whom do you usually communicate via mobile phone? 20. Where do you usually use your phone? 21. Are there places or times when you are not allowed to use your phone? 22. Are there places or times when you do not feel comfortable using your phone? 23. Has the ability to use a mobile phone changed your daily life in any way? If so, how? 24. What does your mobile phone mean to you? 25. Would your life be different without a mobile phone? If yes, how? 26. What are the positive aspects of owning or using a mobile phone, if any? 27. What are the negative aspects of owning or using a mobile phone, if any? 344

Computers: 28. Do you use computers? (If yes to question 28, the interviewee will be asked questions 29 42) 29. If yes, when and where did you learn how to use a computer? 30. How often do you use a computer? 31. What do you most often do on a computer (word processing, email, surfing the web)? 32. Where do you most often use a computer (work, home, caf, etc.)? 33. If you use email, who are the people you exchange email with most often? 34. If you visit chat rooms, which types of chat rooms to you enjoy? 35. If you surf the web, what types of websites do you like to visit? 36. Has the ability to use a computer changed your daily life in any way? If so, how? 37. Would your life be different without access to a computer? 38. Would your life be different without access to the Internet? 39. What are the positive aspects of using email, if any? 40. What are the negative aspects of using email, if any? 41. What are the positive aspects of surfing the web, if any? 42. What are the negative aspects of surfing the web, if any? Digital Music Players: 43. Do you own a portable digital music player? (If yes to question 43, the interviewee will be asked questions 44 56) 44. If yes, what kind? 45. How long have you owned it? 46. How did you decide to buy this type of music player? 47. Have you personalized the appearance of your music player in any way (with jewelry, different skins, etc.)? If yes, how did you choose these personalized aspects? 48. What do you like to listen to most on your music player? 49. When and where do you most often use your music player? 50. Are there places or times when you are not allowed to use your music player? 51. Are there places or times when you do not feel comfortable using your music player? 52. Has owning a portable digital music player changed your daily life in any way? If so, how? 53. What does your music player mean to you? 54. Would your life be different without a digital music player? If yes, how? 55. What are the positive aspects of owning or using a digital music player, if any? 56. What are the negative aspects of owning or using a digital music player, if any? 57. Of all of the types of new communication devices that we have discussed, which is the most important to you? Why?

345

APPENDIX 2: MOBILE PHONE USE DIARY Please use this form to keep a diary of your mobile phone use during a one-week period. Please fill out this form Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday of a given week. Include all text messages, voice calls, mobile Internet, camera use, file downloading or sending, and game playing during an entire day. Please use one form per mobile phone use. If you called or texted the same person more than once on the same day, you can use the same form for each contact. Try to fill out this form within 24 hours of the day being recorded. Date: ______________________ Time: ______________________ Sender: _____________________ Recipient: ___________________ Location: ______________________________________________________________ Who else was in the vicinity of this communication (within hearing or seeing distance): ______________________________________________________________________ Which mobile phone function did you use? Circle one: voice call file sending SMS mobile email mobile web camera game file downloading other: __________

Why the above form of contact used: ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Length of communication (to the nearest half minute): __________________________ Content (summary of topics). If there is content you would prefer not to reveal, please write, confidential.

Any problems during this communication: 346