Beyond Tears and Laughter

Yang Shen, with a PhD from the London School of Economics, is an assistant professor at School of International and Public Affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her work explores individual experiences of Chinese migrant workers within the contemporary globalized economy. Her current research focuses on housing and intimacy, online dating, and women's fertility practices under the changing family planning policy in China.

“The book provides a good example of nuanced fieldwork observations and ethnographic details based on a longitudinal field investigation … . Readers will appreciate the rich details of daily interactions and benefit from the grassroots knowledge about migrant workers in China’s metropolitan service sector. With its in-depth analysis of migrant workers’ life and subjectivity, this is an excellent book for people who are interested in gender, migration, work and China studies more generally.” (Jing Song, The China Quarterly, February 21, 2022)

• 1. Introducing migration, gender and service sector.- 2. Gendered subjectivities in a patriarchal China.- 3. Working in a gendered, feminised and hierarchical workplace.- 4. The shortlived jobs: from beginning to end.- 5. Negotiating intimacy: obedience, compromise and resistance.- 6. Crafting a modern person via consumption? Women and men in leisure activities.- 7. Unpacking the complexity of gender, class and hukou.