Women Migrants in Southern China and Taiwan

Book excerpt: This book, based on extensive original research, explores the lives, the migratory experiences and the social, economic, and emotional practices of Chinese migrant women during their migrations and mobilities in China, from China to Taiwan, from Taiwan to China and in between the two countries. It illustrates how women on the move experience social contempt, misrecognition and economic marginalisation; how women migrants seek autonomy, economic independence, upward social mobility and modernity, but discover the Chinese inegalitarian social order and labour regimes which produce obstacles and impede their ambitions; and how old and new forms of subalternity are reproduced. Overall, the book emphasises what it feels like for the women migrants as they negotiate their way at the crossroad between subalternity and resistance, between subordinated labour and independent, digital entrepreneurship, and between an inegalitarian labour market and new, online opportunities for business and commerce.