Claiming Labor Rights

Welcome to the last lecture in the "Current affairs in China" series this spring semester: A ‘new era’ for migrant labor unrest in China? Changing patterns of worker protests under Xi Jinping.

Over the last decade, the patterns of worker protests in China have changed significantly. Struggles for workers’ rights provided grounds for optimism regarding the collective empowerment of China’s working class. However, Xi Jinping’s ascendance to power in 2012 marked the beginning of a substantially more coercive governing approach towards labor activism that heavily undermines the conditions for continued self-organizing.

Based on his long-term fieldwork in China, Daniel Fuchs, a postdoc at the Department of Asian and African Studies at Humboldt University, provides insights into migrant labor unrest's current characteristics, situating them within the history of worker protests in reform China.

Please register

The guest lecture will be digital, and is open for everyone who are interested. To receive a link to the lecture, please register here.  

For further inquieries about the lecture series, please contact Julia Marinaccio on Julia.Marinaccio@uib.no

The lectures:

• 3 February: Combating Covid-19
• 24 February: Aspirations and China’s Modernization
• 17 March: Building State Capacity
• 24 March: Accountability of Corporate Actors
• 14 April: Grappling with the Crisis
• 21 April: Claiming Labor Rights