Labour and rights in contemporary China : beyond the hegemonic discourse

Abstract

Through an extensive fieldwork, this research aims at answering one fundamental question: in the Chinese case, how to reconcile the narrative of a State which promotes a strong discourse on labour and rights with a reality in which workers are blatantly exploited? To provide an explanation to this apparent paradox, this dissertation highlights the importance of analyzing the dialectic tensions between the various actors involved in the production of such discourse, underlining their different agendas. In spite of the hugeness of the task, this dissertation wants to be a first pace in the direction of a better comprehension of these dynamics. To achieve this goal, it offers a series of perspectives on how in China the State, the official union, the civil society organizations and the workers interact with each other to produce a very peculiar narrative of labour and rights, a narrative which unfortunately is rarely matched by reality.