開課教師｜Instructor
劉子愷
專長領域：語言人類學、數位民族誌、障礙人類學、數位敘事、邊境/跨境、遷徙/勞動
課程介紹｜Content
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, family ties, class differentiation, and digital labor.
課程目標｜Goal
- Critically review and discuss the topics of labor and migration in the age of digital media from the interdisciplinary approaches.
- Examine extant literature on the topics of labor migration and digital media in contemporary China.
- Apply above intellectual concepts and theoretical frameworks to their own experiences and observations of migration and digital media practices.
- Enhance students’ awareness of social inequality, class gap and digital divide in digital media practices that migrants encounter.
課程進度｜Schedule
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週次
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課程主題 |
課程內容與指定閱讀 |
教學活動與作業 |
學習 |
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課堂
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課程
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| 1 | Introduction | 3 | 2 | ||
| 2 | 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
Guo, Shaohua 2021 The Evolution of the Chinese Internet. Stanford University Press. Chapter 2: A Historical Overview through Technological Platforms. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions
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3 | 6 |
| 3 | Platform Economy and Sharing Economy |
Zhang, Lin 2020 When Platform Capitalism Meets Petty Capitalism in China: Alibaba and an Integrated Approach to Platformization. International Journal of Communication 14: 114-134.
Vallas, Steven and Juliet B. Schor 2020 What Do Platforms Do? Understanding the Gig Economy. Annual Review of Sociology 46: 273-294.
Ravenelle, Alexandrea J. 2019 Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy. Oakland: University of California Press. Chapter 1: Strugglers, Strivers and Success Stories. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions
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3 | 9 |
| 4 | Digital Labor, Exploitation and Informational Capitalism | Fuchs, Christian
2014 Digital Labor and Karl Marx. London: Routledge. [Read] Chapter 11: Theorizing Digital Labour on Social Media.
Bucher, Eliane and Christian Fieseler 2017 The Flow of Digital Labor. New Media & Society 19(11): 1868-1886.
Brophy, Enda and Greig De Peuter 2018 Labors of Mobility: Communicative Capitalism and the Smartphone Cybertariat. In Theories of the Mobile Internet: Materialities and Imaginaries. Andrew Herman, Jan Hadlaw and Thom Swiss, eds. Pp. 60-86. London: Routledge.
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Lecture; group presentations; discussions
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3 | 9 |
| 5 | Digital Working Class, Labor and Migrants in China | Sun, Ping
2019 Your Order, Their Labor: An Exploration of Algorithms and Laboring on Food Delivery Platforms in China. Chinese Journal of Communication 12(3): 308-323.
Qiu, Jack Linchuan 2018 China’s Digital Working Class and Circuits of Labor. Communication and the Public 3(1): 5-18.
Chen, Julie Yujie 2017 Thrown Under the Bus and Outrunning It! The Logic of Didi and Taxi Drivers’ Labour and Activism in the On-demand Economy. New Media & Society 20(8): 2691-2711.
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Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 | 9 |
| 6 | Labor, Precarity and (Dis)empowerment | Han, Clara
2018 Precarity, Precariousness, and Vulnerability. Annual Review of Anthropology 47: 331-343.
Lee, Ching Kwan 2016 Precarization or Empowerment? Reflections on Recent Labor Unrest in China. The Journal of Asian Studies 75(2): 317-333.
McDonald, Tom 2020 Social Money and Working-Class Subjectivities: Digital Money and Migrant Labor in Shenzhen, China. China Quarterly 242: 397-417. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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| 7 |
Workshop I |
3 | 9 | ||
| 8 | Female Migrant Labor, Suzhi Discourse and Self-Development | Pun, Ngai
2016 Migrant Labor in China: Post-socialist Transformations. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chapter 5: Spatial Politics: Production and Social Production of the Dormitory Labor Regime.
Yan, Hairong 2008 New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development, and Women Workers in China. Durham: Duke University Press. [Read] Chapter 3: Suzhi as a New Value: Neoliberal Governance of Labor Migration. Chapter 5: Self-Development and the Specter of Class.
Kipnis, Andrew 2007 Neoliberalism Reified: Suzhi Discourse and Tropes of Neoliberalism in the People’s Republic of China. Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute 13(2): 383-400. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 | 9 |
| 9 | Migrant Youth, Return Migration and Homelands | Ling, Minhua
2019 The Inconvenient Generation: Migrant Youth Coming of Age on Shanghai’s Edge. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Chapter 5: To Go Home or Not.
La, Hai Anh La and Suiwah Leung 2012 Remittances from Migrants: Experience of Vietnamese Households. Journal of Vietnamese Studies 7(4): 10-31.
Pido, Eric J. 2017 Migrant Returns: Manila, Development, and Transnational Connectivity. Durham: Duke University Press. Chapter 2: The Foreign Local: Balikbayans, Overseas Filipino Workers and the Return Economy. Chapter 5: The Balikbayan House: The Precarity of Return Migrant Homes. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 | 9 |
| 10 | 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.
Peng, Y. 2017 Affective Networks: How WeChat Enhances Tencent’s Digital Business Governance. Chinese Journal of Communication 10(3): 264-278.
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.
Woodcock, Jamie and Mark R. Johnson 2019 The Affective Labor and Performance of Live Streaming on Twitch.tv. Television and New Media 20(8): 813-823. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 | 9 |
| 11 |
Workshop II 線上/線下的 多點民族誌
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Research Methods for
Multi-sited Ethnography Online and Offline |
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| 12 | Migrants, Gender and Technomobility | Wallis, Cara
2013 Technomobility in China: Young Migrant Women and Mobile Phones. Introduction: Mobile Bodies, Mobile Technologies and Immobile Mobility. Chapter 1: Market Reforms, Global Linkages and (Dis)continuity in Postsocialist China. Chapter 2: “My First Big Urban Purchase”: Mobile Technologies and Modern Subjectivities. Chapter 3: Navigating Mobile Networks of Sociality and Intimacy.
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Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 | 9 |
| 13 | Digital Labor, Gig Economy and Algorithms | Rosenbalt, Alex
2018 Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work. Chapter 1: Driving as Glamorous Labor. Chapter 2: Motivations to Drive.
Seaver, Nick 2017 Algorithms as Culture: Some Tactics for the Ethnography of Algorithmic Systems. Big Data and Society 4(2).
Bucher, Taina 2017 The Algorithmic Imaginary: Exploring the Ordinary Affects of Facebook Algorithms. Information, Communication and Society 20(1): 30-44. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 | 9 |
| 14 | Gender, Digital Labor and Digital Economy | Lukács, Gabriella
2020 Invisibility by Design: Women and Labor in Japan's Digital Economy. Durham: Duke University Press. Introduction: Labor and Gender in Japan’s Digital Economy. Chapter 1: Disidentifications: Women, Photography and Everyday Patriarchy. Chapter 2: The Labor of Cute: Net Idols in the Digital Economy. Chapter 3: Career Porn: Blogging and the Good Life.
Sun, Wanning 2012 Amateur Photography as Self-Ethnography: China’s Rural Migrant Workers and the Question of Digital-political Literacy. Media International Australia 145: 135-144. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 | 9 |
| 15 | 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. Chapter 2: Skype Mothers and Facebook Children. Chapter 3: Communities of Care.
Lim, Sun Sun 2020 Transcendent Parenting: Raising Children in the Digital Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 1: Transcendent Parenting and the Media-Rich Household. |
Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 | 9 |
| 16 |
Symposium 學術會議
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Migration, Labor and
Digital Media |
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| 17 | Final Project Presentations
個人期末 專題報告 |
Students’ Presentations | Lecture; group presentations; discussions;
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3 | 9 |
| 18 | Final Project Presentations
個人期末 專題報告 |
Students’ Presentations | group presentations; discussions; | 3 | 9 |
上課形式｜Activities
講述Lecture
討論Discussion
小組活動Group activity
數位學習E-learning
其他：Others:
評分標準｜Grading
Term Grade: 100 %
Class Attendance/Participation/Discussion (total 8%)
Discussion Questions (total 11%)
Article Presentations (6 times, each 3%) (total 18%)
Response Papers (6 times, each 4%) (total 24%)
Individual Learning Portfolio (Framing Ideas for Individual Final Paper)
(3 mini papers, each 3%) (total 9%)
Final Project Presentation (8%)
Final Written Paper (22%)
參考書目｜Readings
[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.
Scholz, Trebor ed.
2013 Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory. New York: Routledge.
Qiu, Jack Linchuan
2009 Working-class Network Society: Communication Technology and the Information
Have-Less in Urban China. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Pun, Ngai
2016 Migrant Labor in China: Post-socialist Transformations. Cambridge: Polity.
Yan, Hairong
2008 New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development, and Women Workers in
China. Durham: Duke University Press.
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.
Agrawa, Ravi
2018 India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World's Largest Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schneider, Florian
2018 China’s Digital Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[Recommended Texts] 推薦書目
Smets, Kevin, Koen Leurs, Myria Georgiou, Saskia Witteborn and Radhika Gajjala, eds.
2019 The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Binah-Pollak, Avital
2019 Cross-border Marriages and Mobility: Female Chinese Migrants and Hong Kong
Men. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Mathews, Gordon, Linessa Dan Lin and Yang Yang
2017 The World in Guangzhou: Africans and Other Foreigners in South China’s Global
Marketplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lukács, Gabriella
2020 Invisibility by Design: Women and Labor in Japan's Digital Economy. Durham:
Duke University Press.
