More than selling food
The affective labor of rural and small cities female creators in China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23310679 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yuqi Yang (0009-0006-6571-345X, University of Southern California) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Cultural Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1367-8779 • E-ISSN: 1460-356X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/13678779261469212 |
| OpenAlex | W7170511408 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 34 |
This paper draws on semi-structured interviews with 12 rural and small-city-based women creators on the short video and livestreaming platform Kuaishou to examine how these women actively transform unpaid domestic labor into a double form of creator work: affective labor performed through food-related content to build and sustain audience relationships and material-commercial labor enacted through offline street food vending as micro-entrepreneurship. The paper argues that the conditions motivating these women to create, including platform and state opportunities, domestic skills, and the need to claim recognition inside and beyond the home, also reproduce the precarity they navigate, as platform algorithmic uncertainty, the undervaluation of affective labor, persistent family expectations, and gendered harassment remain constant features of their creator lives. Through three dimensions of analysis, “strategic money-making,” “recognition and sisterhood,” and “the navigation of authenticity, public–private boundaries, and gendered harassment,” the paper shows that these women generate real income, social presence, and communities of solidarity while exercising agency that remains contingent and precarious. The paper contributes to feminist labor theory by moving beyond extraction frameworks, and to creator studies by showing that offline micro-entrepreneurship and online affective labor are mutually sustaining, bringing these frameworks into dialogue with the specific conditions of platform labor in China.
Affect (linguistics) · Agency (philosophy) · China · Emotional labor · Harassment · Precarity · Solidarity · State (computer science) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Emotional Labor in Professions · Gender, Feminism, and Media
Commonwealth
Mastering the Semi-Structured Interview and Beyond
The Managed Heart
Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China
Social media celebrity and the institutionalization of YouTube
Iterative categorization (IC)
Tactics of Disconnection
From invisible to visible
The Discipline of Happiness
The Affective Labor and Performance of Live Streaming on Twitch.tv
But we still try”
Douyin's playful platform governance
The romance of work
Pawns in the power struggle
The intimacy triple bind
The real digital housewives of China’s Kuaishou video-sharing and live-streaming app
Women's Micro-Entrepreneurial Homeworking
Playing to the Crowd
Self-branding, 'micro-celebrity' and the rise of Social Media Influencers
Suffused by Feeling and Affect
"Dissolved Boundaries and "Affective Labor
Playing live-streaming 'love games
Platformization of the Unlikely Creative Class
Thematic networks
How many cases do I need
Burning out in emotional capitalism
Affective Labor and Feminist Politics
My blog is me
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |