Siyuan Yin’s Contesting Inequalities: Mediated Labor Activism and Rural Migrant Workers in China offers a timely analytical intervention into the study of migrant workers’ activism in China. Facing the “formidable powers of the state, the market, and cultural domination” (3), rural migrant workers have increasingly turned to mediated labor activism—“the integration of a variety of media, cultural production, … communicative practices, … and digital media, into daily activism” (ibid.)—as their collective resistance. By situating Chinese migrant workers within the global disenfranchisement of labor under neoliberalism, Yin shows how their activism mediated by theater, music, writing, and other cultural forms is deeply entangled with struggles against patriarchy and heteronormativity.
The book explores the potential of Chinese migrant workers as emerging subjects of social change and delves into the counterhegemonic possibilities of intersectional labor activism in China. Yin examines the diverse social actors and practices of mediated labor activism through multi-sited and digital ethnography in two labor NGOs namely Migrant Women’s Club (MWC) and Migrant Workers’ Home (MWH), a feminist band Jiu Ye (Nine Wildness), and a digital feminist-media outlet Jianjiao Buluo (Pepper Community) from 2016–2022. Framing her analysis through “the struggles between hegemonic and counterhegemonic powers” (8), Yin identifies three interdependent elements to construct counterhegemonic powers: the formation of new political subjectivities, the development of transformative epistemologies, and the building of informal networks. Finally, in imagining alternative futures, Yin argues for the cultivation of a democratic, socialist, and feminist conditions in which migrant workers’ collective resistance can struggle toward a more just world.
The body of the book is purposefully divided into five chapters, each addressing different dimensions of counterhegemony. Chapter 1 establishes the historical and socioeconomic contexts in which mediated labor activism has developed, both in China and transnationally. Chapters 2–4 examine the three interrelated elements vital for counterhegemonic power through case studies. Chapter 2 investigates how middle-aged female domestic migrant workers in MWC transform their political subjectivities through theatrical practices. Their performances enact a “collective critique and resistance” (69) to intersecting systems of exploitation, while also cultivating critical consciousness to form collective resisting subjects (81). Chapter 3 analyzes how, within a Marxist class-struggle framework, migrant workers in MWH develop transformative ways of knowing the world and construct a “new worker” (86) identity. Through their cultural production, these workers forge “ideological alliances” (107) with other social actors united by shared opposition to capitalism and neoliberalism.
Chapter 4 adopts a feminist approach to two case studies of labor activism, offering intersectional insights for both labor and feminist scholars and activists. With feminist struggles marginalized in both mainstream discourse and labor activism in China, Jiu Ye produces songs for and about working-class women, articulating a feminist critique of labor activism’s neglect of gender and mounting a grassroots challenge to middle-class dominated feminism. The independent, digital-based media outlet Jianjiao Buluo provides a rare space for working-class women’s expression, particularly queer women and victim-survivors of gendered violence who experience intersecting forms of marginalization. This chapter makes an important analytical contribution by highlighting the ephemeral spaces facilitated by digital media and the frequently overlooked bottom-up dimensions of feminist resistance. Yin’s intersectional approach provides a productive lens for interrogating the persistent gaps and constraints in both feminist and labor activism.
Chapter 5 steps back from case studies to synthesize the author’s key findings within China’s sociopolitical context. Yin contends that the pervasive disenfranchisement of the working class, coupled with the state’s stringent control, cautions scholars against underestimating mediated labor activism’s potential to generate effective counterpower. In addition, the role of labor NGOs, grassroots groups, and alternative media in China’s labor activism, as well as in migrant workers’ lives, must not be dismissed. Yin draws on Robert Asen’s (2000) concept of “counterpublics”—which theorizes marginalized groups’ efforts to cultivate alternative cultural spaces in recognition of exclusion—to emphasize the potential for counterhegemonic powers to emerge through pluralistic counterpublics.
Overall, this book addresses a significant gap in the study of Chinese labor activism by foregrounding the significance of mediated labor activism and challenging the “liberal trap” of dismissing non-unionized, non-state-overthrowing resistance. At the same time, by adopting a feminist lens in chapter 4, it bridges middle-class-led feminist activism centered on urban women’s concerns with class-focused labor activism that often overlooks gender, thereby broadening the conceptual horizons of both movements.
There is one area where I diverge from Yin in her analysis regarding ICTs (Information-Communication Technologies). While she recognizes the significance of informal networks in fostering counterhegemonic power and the role of ICTs in facilitating these networks, she downplays the prominence of digital technologies in mediated labor activism. I concur with her emphasis on centering actors’ collective consciousness in the development of activism and her adoption of a dialectical perspective to avoid “fall[ing] into a technological determinism” (166). However, in light of the intensified political crackdowns since COVID-19, I contend that digital technologies are not only “beneficial to labor activism” (166) but also one of “the decisive factor[s]” (166). They have become a crucial—if not fundamental—form of infrastructure for activism and resistance across multiple sectors in an increasingly authoritarian China.
In addition, the inclusion of a dedicated methodology section—particularly detailing the selection and rationale of fieldwork methods, studied NGOs, and interlocutors—would have been highly beneficial. Given the sensitive nature of activism within China’s context, such an elaborated methodological account would offer valuable insights and practical reference for PhD students and early-career researchers navigating relevant research. Moreover, it could help challenge perceptions of China’s purported omnipotence and encourage emerging scholars to engage in this critical area of study.
The book also brings up interesting empirical findings that could be further built upon, namely the generational differences in migrant workers’ participation in activism, which merit deeper exploration and intersectional theorization. While this study focuses on migrant workers already engaged in labor activism, future research might examine the processes through which depoliticized working-class individuals develop subjectivities and are mobilized into activism.
To conclude, Contesting Inequalities is an engaging and thought-provoking read for scholars in labor studies, China studies, and feminist studies focused on China. It especially offers a stimulating perspective for Chinese feminist scholars and activists, encouraging reflections from a working-class, grassroots standpoint and reimagination of a more inclusive feminist future. In contemporary China and beyond, the author’s “utopian demands” (Weeks 2011) for a democratic, socialist, and feminist social environment may initially appear idealistic; yet they remain radically important for advancing social justice in the face of globalizing neoliberalism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and other systemic inequalities, both in activist practice and academic research.