Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
This is a course for graduate students who are interested in doing ethnographic research with a focus on the topics of labor and migration in the digital age. Students with or without background knowledge of contemporary China are welcome to take this course. This course examines the scales and practices of migration and labor in the digital media era with an intensive focus on domestic and transnational migration in China. In order to enrich the depth and comparison of case studies, this course will also cover a few ethnographic cases from other East Asian countries. This course, in particular, focuses on the impacts of the internet, smartphones, websites, and social media on interpersonal and intercultural communication and networks in the context of migration. It covers the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of digital labor, platform economy, gig economy, digital working-class, affective labor, and precarity in the fields of anthropology, applied economics, sociology, and communication. The class will also read the books and ethnographies which, in particular, focus on rural-to-urban migration, return migration, suzhi discourse, gender politics, migrant networks, transnational family ties, care, class differentiation, and digital labor.
能力項目說明
| 教學週次Course Week | 彈性補充教學週次Flexible Supplemental Instruction Week | 彈性補充教學類別Flexible Supplemental Instruction Type |
|---|---|---|
|
Week |
Topic |
Content and Reading Assignment |
Teaching Activities and Homework |
Student workload expectation |
|
|
In-class Hours |
Outside-of-class Hours |
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|
1 (2/21)
|
Conceptualizing Migration and Labor in the Digital/Chip Era |
Introduction |
|
3 |
2 |
|
2 (2/28)
|
National Holiday |
|
|
3 |
8 |
|
3 (3/7)
|
Labor, Ideology and Political Economy in the Age of Social Media |
Fuchs, Christian 2015 Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media. New York: Routledge. [Read] Chapter 3: Communication, Ideology, and Labour. Chapter 4: Social Media and Labour Time.
Ticona, Julia 2022 Left to Our Own Devices: Coping with Insecure Work in a Digital Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 1: The Digital Hustle.
|
Presentation and Discussion |
3 |
8 |
|
4 (3/14)
|
Platform Economy and Sharing Economy |
Vallas, Steven and Juliet B. Schor 2020 What Do Platforms Do? Understanding the Gig Economy. Annual Review of Sociology 46: 273-294.
Chen, Julie Yujie 2020 The Mirage and Politics of Participation in China’s Platform Economy. Javnost: The Public 27(2): 154-170.
Schor, Juliet B. and Steven P. Vallas 2021 The Sharing Economy: Rhetoric and Reality. Annual Review of Sociology 47: 369-389.
Schinkel, Willem 2023 Steps to an Ecology of Algorithms. Annual Review of Anthropology 52:171-186.
Liao, Sara 2024 The Platformization of Misogyny: Popular Media, Gender Politics, and Misogyny in China’s State-Market Nexus. Media, Culture & Society 46(1): 191-203. |
Presentation and Discussion |
3 |
8 |
|
5 (3/21)
|
Digital Labor, Exploitation and Informational Capitalism |
Fuchs, Christian 2014 Digital Labor and Karl Marx. London: Routledge. Chapter 11: Theorizing Digital Labour on Social Media.
Rouse, Lauren and Anastasia Salte 2021 Cosplay on Demand? Instagram, OnlyFans, and the Gendered Fantrepreneur. Social Media+Society
Wong, J., Lee, C., Long, V. K., Wu, D., & Jones, G. M. 2021 “Let’s Go, Baby Forklift!”: Fandom Governance and the Political Power of Cuteness in China. Social Media + Society 7(2). |
Presentation and Discussion |
3 |
8 |
|
6 (3/28)
|
Labor, Precarity and (Dis)empowerment |
Han, Clara 2018 Precarity, Precariousness, and Vulnerability. Annual Review of Anthropology 47: 331-343.
Huang, Hui 2021 Riders on the Storm: Amplified Platform Precarity and the Impact of COVID-19 on Online Food-delivery Drivers in China. Journal of Contemporary China.
Stead, Victoria 2021 Precarity’s Reach: Intersections of History, Life, and Labour in the Australian Horticultural Industry. Journal of Royal Anthropological Association 27(2): 303-320. |
Presentation and Discussion |
3 |
8 |
|
7 (4/4)
|
National Holiday |
|
|
3 |
8 |
|
8 (4/11)
|
Digital Working Class, Labor and Migrants |
Qiu, Jack Linchuan 2018 China’s Digital Working Class and Circuits of Labor. Communication and the Public 3(1): 5-18.
Soriano, Cheryll Ruth R 2021 Digital Labour in the Philippines: Emerging Forms of Brokerage. Media International Australia 179(1): 23-37. |
Presentation and Discussion |
3 |
8 |
|
9 (4/18)
|
Return Migration, Homelands and (Im)mobilities |
Hagan, Jacqueline Maria and Joshua Thomas Wassink 2020 Return Migration Around the World: An Integrated Agenda for Future Research. Annual Review of Sociology 46: 533-552.
Ling, Minhua 2024 Reconfiguring Home: Rural-Bound Return and Translocal Householding in Postreform China. In States of Return: Rethinking Migration and Mobility. Deborah A. Boehm and Mikaela H. Rogozen-Soltar, eds. Pp. 166-186. New York: NYU Press.
Pido, Eric J. 2017 Migrant Returns: Manila, Development, and Transnational Connectivity. Durham: Duke University Press. Chapter 5: The Balikbayan House: The Precarity of Return Migrant Homes. |
Presentation and Discussion |
6 |
8 |
|
10 (4/25) |
Migrants, Gender Politics and Affective Labor |
Wallis, Cara 2018 Domestic Workers and the Affective Dimensions of Communicative Empowerment. Communication, Culture, and Critique 11(2): 213-230.
Ip, Penn Tsz Ting 2017 Desiring Singlehood? Rural Migrant Women and Affective Labour in the Shanghai Beauty Parlour Industry. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 18(4): 558-580.
Mankekar, Purnima and Akhil Gupta 2016 Intimate Encounters: Affective Labor in Call Centers. Positions 24 (1): 17-43. |
Presentation and Discussion |
6 |
8 |
|
11 (5/2) |
Migration, Transnational Family and Care |
Francisco-Menchavez, Valerie 2018 The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Introduction: Filipinos Transnational Families and New Caring Strategies. Chapter 1: Multidirectional Care in Transnational Families.
Yu, Haiqing, Ge Zhang and Larissa Hjorth 2023 Mobilizing Care? WeChat for Older Adults’ Digital Kinship and Informal Care in Wuhan Households. Mobile Media and Communication 11(2) |
Presentation and Discussion |
6 |
8 |
|
12 (5/9)
|
Care, Work and Feeling Machines |
Bender, Shawn 2024 Feeling Machines: Japanese Robotics and the Global Entanglements of More-Than- Human Care. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Introduction: Care Robotics 1.0 Chapter 2: Feeling Machines in Robot Towns Chapter3: Tinkering with Care Chapter 4: Embracing Paro |
Presentation and Discussion |
6 |
8 |
|
13 (5/16)
|
Social Media Influencer and Youtube |
Bollmer, Grant and Katherine Guinness 2024 The Influencer Factory: A Marxist Theory of Corporate Personhood on YouTube. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Introduction Chapter 1: House Chapter 2: Car Chapter 5: Corpocene |
Presentation and Discussion |
3 |
8 |
|
14 (5/23)
|
Rethinking Migration, Labor and Return |
Morton, Gregory D. 2024 Return from the World: Economic Growth and Reverse Migration in Brazil. The University of Chicago Press.
Introduction Chapter 1: The Phone Call Home Chapter 2: The Roads Chapter 5: The Money Chapter 6: The Things You Hold |
Presentation and Discussion |
3 |
8 |
|
15 (5/30)
|
National Holiday |
|
|
3 |
8 |
|
16 (6/6) |
|
Final Project Presentation |
|
8 |
|
Course Grading 評分方式
Term Grade: 100 %
Class Attendance/Participation/Discussion (total 10%)
Discussion Questions (total 11%)
Article Presentations (4 times, each 5%) (total 20%)
Response Papers to the required readings (4 times, each 6%) (total 24%)
Final Project Presentation (10%)
Final Written Paper (25%)
[Required Text] 指定書目
Fuchs, Christian
2014 Digital Labor and Karl Marx. London: Routledge.
2015 Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media. New York: Routledge.
Ling, Minhua
2019 The Inconvenient Generation: Migrant Youth Coming of Age on Shanghai’s Edge. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Francisco-Menchavez, Valerie
2018 The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Wallis, Cara
2013 Technomobility in China: Young Migrant Women and Mobile Phones. New York: NYU Press.
Cabalquinto, Earvin Charles B.
2022 (Im)mobile Homes: Family Life at a Distance in the Age of Mobile Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chan, Lik Sam
2021 The Politics of Dating APPs: Gender, Sexuality and Emergent Public in Urban China. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Enriquez, Falina
2022 The Costs of the Gig Economy: Musical Entrepreneurs and the Cultural Politics of Inequality in Northeastern Brazil. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Miller, Daniel, Laila Abed Rabho, and Patrick Awondo
2021 The Global Smartphone: Beyond a Youth Technology. London: UCL Press.
Messeri, Lisa
2024 In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bollmer, Grant and Katherine Guinness
2024 The Influencer factory: A Marxist Theory of Corporate Personhood on YouTube. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bender, Shawn
2024 Feeling Machines: Japanese Robotics and the Global Entanglements of More-Than-Human Care. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Wright, James
2023 Robots Won’t Save Japan: An Ethnography of Eldercare Automation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.