富士康城市——中國二代民工的性別化都市消費

Abstract

台企富士康以城鄉流動的中國(農)民工，充作底層勞動力。它是全球最大電子製造業工廠，也是美國蘋果公司最大的海外代工廠。深圳富士康的龐大規模，使得廠區建成，宛如城市生成；工廠經營，形同一座城市的治理。2010年富士康勞工“連跳”自殺，納入工業化管理的員工宿舍是慘劇案發現場。「富士康是不是“血汗工廠”？」因而成為中國「世界工廠」備受矚目的社會爭議。 我的論文將探討中國當代父權社會底下，以二代(農)民工為主的數十萬富士康勞工，在珠三角都會區域的日常生活消費，相應他(她)們所屬全球商品鏈下游生產/勞動條件，形成了怎麼樣的性別化都市狀況？換句話說，這個研究首要關注富士康案例所呈現，世界工廠工人階級在“後漲薪”年代的性別化都市消費；以及反之來看，它和製造業工廠的勞動條件變化、中國父權文化的現今變動，又形成怎麼樣的互為建構關係？ 本研究初步觀察，“後漲薪”年代深圳世界工廠的勞動條件改變，迫使中國製造、編入全球生產的當地品牌代工廠，必得面對產業模式的重新建構。它們不是就地產業轉型，就是推動資本「空間修補」的生產線內遷。這些製造業工廠主要雇用二代(農)民工，作為新國際分工底下，全球生產線的性別化廉價勞工，也連帶面臨了階級與性別位置的歷史性轉變。 深圳世界工廠產業轉型導致的空間再結構，以及它所帶來性別與階級重組，讓二代(農)民工的消費狀況惡化，陷入更嚴重都市危機；這也使得中國工人階級意識和性別主體認同產生變化。奠基差別政治和多重認同的二代(農)民工性別化都市消費，因此成為深圳世界工廠的中國工人階級，在“後漲薪”年代面對國家體制、全球資本，以及家庭父權的三重控制與壓迫，進而展開階級和性別抵抗的新前線。

Headquartered in Taiwan, the Foxconn Corporation is the largest electronic manufacturer in the world and Apple Computer’s principle offshore contractor. With migrating peasant workers constitute its labor base, Foxconn has built up immense factories in Shenzhen, operated on the scale of a city. It was in the dormitories within this rigorously-controlled Foxconn city that a series of suicides took place in 2010. The tragedies prompted questions on Foxconn’s labor practice as well as debates on China’s “world factory” position. My dissertation investigates patterns of consumption among the hundreds of thousands of second-generation peasant workers at Foxconn in the Pearl River delta metropolis: how does their everyday consumption reflect their position at the bottom of a worldwide production chain and how does the contemporary patriarchal society in China impact the gendering of urban consumption? In other words, my research focuses, first, on the gendering of urban consumption among Foxconn peasant workers in the years after wage increases, and, secondly, on the interactions of this gendered consumption with the labor conditions in manufacture and China’s changing patriarchal culture. My research indicates that the changing labor conditions after the wage increases prompt electronic contractors such as Foxconn to restructure their manufacturing model. They are forced to either upgrade their industrial production or relocate their factories to cheaper inland areas, the practice known as “spatial remedy of capitals.” Employed by factory owners to provide cheap labor for the international chain of production, those second-generation peasant workers confront the transformation of their gender and class identity in the aftermath of the new world order of manufacture. The consumption patterns of second-generation peasant workers have steadily deteriorated as a result of the industrial upgrade and spatial restructuring and the attendant gender and class shuffling. The gendered consumption of the post-wage increase second-generation peasant workers, who are oppressed by the triple forces of national structure, world capital, and patriarchal culture, opens the front of resistance with gendered and classed consumption.