Epistemic Labor

Narratives of Hyper-Uncertainty and Future-Making on China's Urban Fringe

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12423924
AutoresHelina S Woldekiros (0000-0002-7790-0686), Yang Zhan (0000-0001-7357-7861, autor de correspondencia)
Año2023
Volumen31
Número2
Páginas431-450
Fecha de publicación2023-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
Revistapositions asia critique (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1067-9847 • E-ISSN: 1527-8271
EditorialDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/10679847-10300280
OpenAlexW4377247091
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas28

This article conceptualizes storytelling as epistemic labor that is critical to the everyday meaning-making and future-making of Chinese rural migrants. Compared to stories told by scholars and migrants turned writers and artists, those told by migrants in a quotidian setting are largely overlooked because of their lack of representational value. However, narratives of success, fortune, and the future that circulate on China's urban fringe are essential in three ways: (1) stories, rather than numbers and calculations, help rural migrants make sense of their economic reality; (2) storytelling allows rural migrants to cope with unexpected events; and (3) stories are often imbued with moral sentiment through which moral boundaries and group identities are established. Overall, epistemic labor makes the present sensible, reality tolerable, and the future imaginable under conditions of hyper-uncertainty in which spatial instability negates routinized time and linear accumulation is denied by dramatic market fluctuations and unpredictable displacement. Epistemic labor proves that migrant agency not only resides in eventful resistance but also in constant negotiations

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Art · China · Displacement (psychology · Epistemology · Literature · Meaning (existential · Narrative · Negotiation · Political science · Resistance (ecology · Social science · Sociology · Storytelling · Value (mathematics · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics