How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China. By Rachel Murphy. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 306 pp. Hard cover $70.00, ISBN 0-521-80901-0; paperback $25.00, ISBN 0-521-00530-2.]

Extract

Mass rural–urban labour migration in post-Mao China has received a great deal of attention by scholars of different disciplines. The existing research has largely focused on the causes and processes of migration; the politics of migrant identities and settlements in the cities; changing modes of governance in managing the migrant population; the questions of urban citizenship; and the cultural experiences of migrant wage workers in the reform era. Yet, we know very little about the profound social, economic and cultural impact of migrant labour on Chinese rural life and society. Rachel Murphy's book provides a timely contribution to our understanding of what has happened in rural China as a result of this unprecedented labour migration. Based on extensive, in-depth fieldwork in three counties in Jiangxi province, this is an extraordinarily insightful and fresh account of the everyday socio-economic changes brought by migration in the origin areas. Moving away from the static analysis of migration by modernization and structuralist theories, Murphy emphasizes the critical role of human agency by treating rural migrants as social agents who actively pursue their goals and utilize resources while making sense of the rapidly changing social world in which they live. Her study convincingly shows that migrants are neither passive victims of structural changes nor actors completely free of structural constraints; rather they constantly adopt strategies to negotiate with and alter the larger social, economic and political environment.