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Mobility, Voice, and Symbolic Restratification: an Ethnography of ‘Elite Migrants’ in Urban China1

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Mobility, Voice, and Symbolic Restratification: an Ethnography of ‘Elite Migrants’ in Urban China1 mobility, voice, and symbolic restratification: An ethnography of ‘elite migrants’ in urban China1 By Jie DonG tilburg university Abstract in this paper i explore class (re)stratification of the contemporary Chinese society through the use of various semiotic resources by a group of ‘elite migrants’ who are highly mobile within the country as well as globally. i identify two sets of semiotic resources and argue that they are different forms of voice articulating the different angles and directions of class distinction.t he first set of resources are external criteria of group membership, expressed by their control of languages – Putonghua and English – that are not tied to one place but offer the mobility that characterizes their social class. the second set of resources are internal criteria of membership (‘mensao’) connected to and predicated on knowledge of particular consumption commodities. the fieldwork data demonstrate a multidimensional complex of voice, internal as well as external and with several scales being oriented towards. through these resources the elite migrants create an identifiable ‘middle class’ voice in contemporary China. 1. Introduction1 occupation, education, and social origin. Conse- Social class is a highly contested notion in con- quently ‘soft’ criteria, e.g. semiotic resources, temporary Chinese society because of its histori- lifestyle, and taste, offer alternative perspectives cal development; yet one observes the progres- into social classification. this paper investigates sive formation of new social groups and hears the deployment of semiotic resources by a group articulation of class consciousness in everyday of highly mobile ‘elite migrants’, in an attempt to social practices (lu 2002; li 2007a, 2007b). A case understand social change and class (re)stratifi- in point here is that after 30 years of accelerated cation that characterize contemporary Chinese economic growth, a sizable new ‘middle class’ is society. emerging as a social layer in China, often consist- the elite migrant participants of the present ing of people who have relocated to the coun- study are a group of Saab car possessors who try’s urban centers such as Beijing and Shanghai have moved to and lived in Shanghai for a pro- with higher academic or professional qualifica- longed period of time, and have situated them- tions. Given the peculiar historical development selves in the middle strata of the host society. of China’s social classes, it can be problematic to An expanding body of literature addresses the identify them using ‘hard’ criteria such as income, recent phenomenal migration inside China h( an, 2001; lu & Zhang, 2001; Zhang, Qu & Zou, 2003; 1 I would like to thank Jan Blommaert, Sjaak Kroon, Fan, 2004, 2005; lu, 2005; Woronov, 2004). And and the anonymous reviewer for their valuable com- the linguistic aspects of labor migrants have ments on this paper. my gratitude goes to Xiaoli, yun- attracted an increase of research attention (e.g. ya, Pingyao, Jeff, Buyi, EJ whose insights open my eyes to their world and help me with theorization of their Dong 2009, 2011; Dong & Blommaert 2009, voice. 2010). however, we know little about the socio- DIVERSITIES Vol. 14, No. 2, 2012 ISSN 2079-6595, www.unesco.org/shs/diversities/vol14/issue2/art3 © UNESCO DIVERSITIES Vol. 14, No. 2, 2012 • ISSN 2079-6595 J. Dong linguistic aspects of elite migrants, apart from the basis of the scientific socialism ideal of the the facts that they have a number of languages marxist-leninist-maoist tradition. During the or language varieties at their disposal, and that thirty years or so of planned economy era (more they go through an upscaling process in which or less between 1949 and 1979), class struc- they are able to draw on their linguistic resources ture was rather neatly defined: a peasant class and negotiate their positions in the social order and an industrial working class which included a of the host society. Elite migrants often escape class fraction of intellectuals and the party cad- research attention in the field of sociolinguistics res. Both classes belonged to the proletariat, and partly because we tend to emphasize marginality the means of production were turned into state and inequality in migration studies. it becomes property (lu 2002; li 2007a). pressing to obtain a more in-depth understand- the economic reform of the 1980’s however ing of elite migrants, especially when they bring has posed theoretical as well as practical chal- diverse cultural and linguistic features, and lenges to this class categorization. theoretically, together with labor migrants, transform urban a social group which emerges out of the now centers into superdiverse metropoles (Vertovec partly privatized economy, and which thus has 2006, 2007; Blommaert 2011a). moreover, both the control over the capital and over the means of types of migration, labor as well as elite migra- production, can hardly fit into either class. Practi- tion, are part of a bigger and more general pro- cally, we have witnessed reshuffles of classes and cess – globalization – in which we observe fast class fractions at least in three respects: first, the flow of capital, people, goods, and information rapidly polarized distribution of power and social across country borders and across continents wealth has given birth to such groups as the ‘new (Blommaert 2011b). Along with the increase of rich’ and the ‘privileged’; second, the glory of GDP and the development of a huge industrial the working class that used to be emblematic of proletariat, also elite migrants are a social and the advanced and revolutionary social force has cultural effect of globalization in China. quickly faded out, and in this process being an in what follows, i shall distinguish two sets of urban industrial worker is downscaled, at least in semiotic resources that the elite migrant par- the eyes of lay people, from a source of prestige ticipants have control of: first, their linguistic to an unwanted identity; third, the transitional repertoire of mobility, and second, the in-group period has created a special class fraction – rural- discourses that flag their social distinction. Bring- urban migrant workers. All of this is richly docu- ing the two sets of semiotic resources together, mented in the public and media debate in China: i shall demonstrate how different forms of voice these issues are of concern to many contempo- articulate the different angles and directions of rary Chinese (Dong 2011). their class distinction. Before engaging with the As for the middle class, the debates are cen- fieldwork data, a brief sketch of the theoretical tered around the question of how to define it. tools is in order. A remarkable similarity shared among the middle class is their denial of middle class membership. 2. Social (re)stratification and its ‘soft’ ‘i am not rich enough’ and ‘there is no middle class indicators in China’ are among the most frequently given Different from that ofn orthern America or West- answers. Because there is no widely accepted ern Europe where there are more or less estab- criterion in China, they compare themselves to lished class systems, social class is a concept the middle class of the united States and con- subject to heated debates among lay people as clude that, if measured against the uS standards, well as academics in contemporary China. the there is no middle class in China. Perhaps con- established view is that the state was born out fusion surrounding the term is not unique to of a proletarian revolution in the first half of China, but it is remarkable in China because of the twentieth century, in which the proletariat its communist orthodoxies in the past and of seized public power and founded the nation on the theoretical difficulties the term poses to the 36 Mobility, voice, and symbolic restratification DIVERSITIES Vol. 14, No. 2, 2012 • ISSN 2079-6595 social frame at present. Another term ‘people of ment in social capital and in networking, which middle income’ (zhongdeng shouru zhe) is often consequently generates social as well as physi- used in the mass media and other public and offi- cal separation of life spaces (1984:375). taste cial discourses (li 2007a, 2007b). this term how- groups people and posits them in certain circles ever is inadequate, at least for a social scientist, and spaces by means of complexes of recogniz- because income does not necessarily coincide able, emblematic features of behavior, comport- with social class, and members of middle class ment, consumption and speech (cf. also Blom- may not fall into the middle income distribution maert & Varis 2012). of a society. Another notion used in this paper is voice, an it is beyond the scope of the present research aspect of the way in which the semiotic resources to conclusively define the Chinese middle class; are deployed. the concept of voice has a com- yet it is safe to say that there is a group of peo- plex history of development and has acquired ple, and perhaps a very large group, who socio- diverse meanings and models of application economically fall between the working class and along its ways of formation. one main theoreti- the (relatively small but powerful) ‘upper class’ cal source is the Bakhtinian notion of voice which of ultra-rich in contemporary Chinese society. in distinguishes social voice from individual voice addition, following Bourdieu (1984), the middle and emphasizes the social dimension of this class will define itself by means of specific activi- notion (Bakhtin 1981, 1984). Another line of con- ties – class praxis – reflecting and fortifying class ceptualizing voice emphasizes the form-function consciousness. Such activities include forms of relationships. this can be traced back to Jakob- consumption, the discursive and semiotic expres- son’s structuralism, and it is more clearly formu- sion and display of ‘taste’ in a variety of cultural lated in hymes’s (1964) and Gumperz’s (1982) and consumer domains, and these activities will work.
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