Cultures of labour

Aspiration, developmental futures and the materiality of memory after Chinese economic reform

Bibliographic Data

ID4965248
AuthorsSamuel Berlin (0000-0001-5018-2138, Durham University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume25
Issue10
Pages1533-1553
Publication date2024-11-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2024.2342833
OpenAlexW4395667138
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited69

This article argues for attention to the affective investments that motivate working people’s life choices in contemporary China by tracing the materiality of the development of aspirations in a rapidly developing context. Turning to the work of Bernard Stiegler, the article contends that for working people, the demand to labour is based not just on the alienation of the means of production (savoir-faire), but also the means of living a good life (savoir-vivre), which is displaced into a future made knowable within the material world in the present. The article shows how the developmental standard-making that produces senses of progress and legitimizes aspiration, thus compelling economic action, is alienated within the materiality of working people’s rapidly changing worlds. By referencing these temporal displacements, developmental subjects assess their own presents by comparison, justifying difficult circumstances by making progress tangible. Understanding the mechanics of aspiration and cultures of labour is vital in light of critiques by labour geographers of the equation of labour agency with traditional, formalized labour politics, as there remains much work to be done to understand how and why people become workers in the first place

Aesthetics · Art · Economics · Financial economics · Futures contract · Materiality (auditing · Sociology · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy

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