Author ORCID Identifier
Date Available
5-30-2023
Year of Publication
2021
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
College
Arts and Sciences
Department/School/Program
Geography
Advisor
Dr. Patricia Ehrkamp
Abstract
This doctoral dissertation providesa novel perspective on the everyday lives of construction workers in urban China, demonstrating the underpinnings of urban infrastructure and citizenship policy in affective and gendered relations surrounding the construction industry. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai, China, this dissertation makes a series of three related arguments: First, focusing on the role that migrant labor plays in the construction of urban infrastructure in Shanghai, I argue that the physical existence of infrastructure itself is inextricably tied to systems that govern rural-urban migration across China. Second, building from the Chinese concept of suzhi as both a set of standards for embodied conduct and a core element of urban citizenship, this dissertation contributes to citizenship and migration literature by arguing that the exclusionary structure of citizenship is constituted affectively, in the relationship between bodies in space. Finally, I focus specifically on the expressions and experiences of masculinity among low-waged construction laborers. Taken together, these arguments make substantial contributions to research on processes of migration and border-making, as well as providing novel empirical work on men’s migration into the Chinese construction industry.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2021.207
Funding Information
This study was supported by the Fulbright Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship (Award No. P022A180041) in 2019-2020.
Recommended Citation
Johnson, Leif, "BUILDING QUALITY? MIGRATION, SUZHI, AND SUBALTERN MASCULINITY IN THE SHANGHAI CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY" (2021). Theses and Dissertations--Geography. 79.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/geography_etds/79
