ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the emergence of Chinese second-generation migrant workers in the contexts of China’s changing urban-based accumulation since the 2008 global financial crisis. It has five sections. First, it locates the emergence of the ‘Diaosi’ subject in the urban contexts since the 2008 global financial crisis. Second, the plight of second-generation migrant workers is made worse by two exclusionary biopolitical population management systems unique in the Chinese system. Third, focusing on the new subaltern identity of ‘Diaosi’, the chapter examines the subjective embodiment of this marginality in their everyday life. Fourth, drawing on the neo-Gramscian approach, this part argues that subaltern-Diaosi identity is far from consistent but involves elements of ‘contradictory consciousness’ and fragmentation. Fifth, the chapter ends with a discussion on the nature of urban changes, consumer citizenship, and politics of subalternity in China’s one-party authoritarian system.
