ABSTRACT
The lives and attitudes of the Chinese employees in question were either taken for granted or, for want of further information, simply entrusted to the least tolerant sectors of the public imagination. Labor ethnographers can fill the vacuum by helping to put a human face on the job traffic that is usually summed up in United States–China trade statistics or in the latest employment figures. Charting and understanding this process requires our immediate attention and expertise, because it lies on the frontline of capital’s effort to establish control over mental, or immaterial, labor. Foreign investors are itching to transfer high-end manufacturing operations – such as product engineering, design, and research and development – into the region as fast as they can. For most foreign human-resource managers of operations in China, recruiting newly graduated students like Zhang is not the primary concern.
