Eleventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

China’s economic miracle in the post-Mao era is greatly contributed to by the laborious work of the millions of rural-urban migrant factory girls. Driven by numerous social reasons, most of this group of women return to their places of origin after extended experiences in the urban centers. Nevertheless, the out-migration and urban experiences imprint the women with intensive dynamics and tensions of China’s transformation at all levels. Particularly, their gender identity is under perplexing transformation. This is firstly because of their economic independence and wide exposure to the diversity of gender discourses; secondly, they try to return to the rural home both physically and mentally, but they find it hard to re-adjust, although the rural home is also under transformation. This study is empirical-data-based, out from a half-year ethnographic research on “the lived experience of returnee migrant women in the fast-growing China’s hinterland.” The data discussed in this study, is based on a longitudinal participant observation on a returnee sister’s life upon return and her representation of her life story. This paper discusses how Maoist women’s liberation discourse, market-economy-oriented neoliberal discourse, and agricultural patriarchal value cooperate with one another, making imprints on contemporary Chinese rural women’s ideological world and guiding their construction of their gender roles; and meanwhile how the women react and perceive themselves.