ABSTRACT
This study has examined the formation and transformation of migrant workers’ struggles and industrial conflicts in China, specifically in its first SEZ, Shenzhen. I drew fruitful insights from a wide range of labour studies traditions before deciding to focus on the nature of migrant workers’ struggles and the historical process of class formation, inspired by the paradigm of ‘new international labour studies’ (Cohen, 1991). In Chapter 1, I laid out my research puzzle on the potential and limitations of the new working class during China’s integration into global capitalism over the past three decades. By reviewing the previous literature on China labour studies, a key question emerged: what is the specificity of labour politics in China? Post-structuralist, culturalist and political economy-orientated institutionalism provided various answers. I tried to break through the limits of orthodox disciplines and undertake a coherent scholarship by connecting local politics with global force (Burawoy et al., 2000) and micro-empirical reality with grand theories (Strangleman, 2005).
