RCCHC "China and the World: Historical Interactions" Talk Series #5 - Precarious Accumulation: Migrant Bosshood and Fast Fashion in Transnational Guangzhou, China

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Date

19 Jan 2024
Organiser

RCCHC
Time

14:00 - 15:30
Venue

BC404

Speaker

Dr Nellie CHU

Enquiry

Ms Waiyin PANG 3400 8921 rcchc@polyu.edu.hk

Remarks

The talk will be delivered in English

Summary

My presentation traces the emergence of what I call "migrant bosshood" among rural Chinese, West African, and South Korean migrants who labor across the global supply chains for fast fashion in Guangzhou, China. Fast fashion is the “just in time” delivery of low-cost, designer-inspired clothing and accessories. It relies on the transnational subcontracting of low-tech manufacturing and low-wage labor capabilities in regions across the Global South. Migrant bosses' cross-cultural collaborations and intimate encounters retell the “Made in China” story as more than a narrative of Chinese migrant workers exporting the fruits of their exploited, low-wage labor to the rest of the world. It is a transnational project that generates new forms of migratory labor, commodity production, and cross-cultural exchange in a globalizing China, upon which corporate outsourcing and subcontracting arrangements across the world rely.

Keynote Speaker

Dr Nellie CHU

Assistant Professor

Cultural Anthropology

Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, China

Dr Nellie Chu is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke Kunshan University in Kunshan, China. Her work focuses on global supply chains, fast fashion, urbanization, migration, and labour. She has published in positions: asia critique, Modern Asian Studies, Culture, Theory and Critique, and the Journal of Modern Craft.