Manufacturing Towns in China Governance, Space, and Conveyance of Rural Migrants to the Assembly Line Yue Ray Gong A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2013 Reading Committee: Daniel Abramson (Chair) Kam Wing Chan Robert Mugerauer Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Urban Design and Planning Group ©Copyright 2013 Yue Ray Gong To Rural Migrants University of Washington Abstract Manufacturing Towns in China Governance, Space, and Conveyance of Rural Migrants to the Assembly Line Yue Ray Gong Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Daniel Abramson The Department of Urban Design and Planning With respect to the current unprecedented Chinese industrialization and urbanization in human history, this dissertation studies three themes: rural migrants, governance, and manufacturing towns. It identifies the few studies of the themes on the scale of towns and villages, especially non-factory areas—town and village centers, and rural migrants’ living zones—as well as about the history of manufacturing towns. Thereby it focuses on examining the governance of rural migrants as ongoing resources of cheap labor in non-factory areas. To collect data, the author conducted 11-month ethnographical field studies in Dongguan, which symbolizes “the world’s factory” and consists of a sizable migrants’ population. My research methodology refers to an analytical frame based on Michel Foucault’s governmentality and Nikolas Rose’s interpretation of governance. This analytical frame highlights that local authorities—local governments, village collectives, and industrialists—practice their governmentalities through implementing various governing technologies as tools and accordingly shaping spaces in order to govern rural migrants. This dissertation argues that the governance of rural migrants in non-factory areas acts as several “invisible filters” corresponding to different spaces of non-factory areas, reinforcing the effect of rural labor supply and industrialists’ governance in factories. These “invisible filters” screen some rural migrants for inclusion as qualified factory labor and excludes the rest. This strengthens the treatment of rural migrants as ongoing resources of factory labor during the reform period. The screening mechanism of “invisible filters” is the local authorities’ heterogeneous conduct for dividing, segregating, examining, policing, selecting, reaching, cultivating, and finally organizing rural migrants while accordingly shaping the spaces of manufacturing towns. As a result, local authorities absorb a few high-suzhi (quality) rural migrants who are young, docile, devoted, skilled, and higher educated into advanced factory programs while demanding a large number of rural migrants, who are unskilled and low- educated, and must be young, docile and healthy, as cheap labor. In addition, local authorities exclude the rest of rural migrants as “dangerous personnel” whom these authorities perceive to harm social stability and manufacturing production potentially. In contrast, rural migrants are not simply obedient and may resist the governance by applying their own techniques. Besides self-organized and individual resistance directly against authorities and their governance, rural migrants can choose to produce their peasants’ identities or imitations of urban residents’ identities instead of keeping their rural migrants’ identities such as strangers, outsiders, and “blind flow”. Thereafter, they resist the governance through “vote by foot”— desertion of manufacturing industry or towns. In response, local authorities must change the governance accordingly. Through the reform era, the three research themes have been transforming with respect to constant interaction between local authorities’ governance and rural migrants’ resistance. Table of Contents List of Abbreviations List of Chinese Terms Introduction I. Summary of the Research Problem and Approach ......................................................................... 8 II. Personal Reflection on My Research ............................................................................................... 11 III. Contributions and Limitations of this Dissertation .................................................................. 16 IV. Structure of the Dissertation ........................................................................................................ 18 Chapter One Rural Migrants, Governance, and Manufacturing Towns: three Research Themes, Literature Review, Research Question, and Methodology I. Research Context ............................................................................................................................... 21 II. Literature Review on Research Themes and Research Question................................................ 27 A. Rural Migrants in Urbanization and Industrialization .............................................................. 27 B. Governance .................................................................................................................................... 38 C. Manufacturing Towns ................................................................................................................... 49 D. Literature Gaps and Research Question .................................................................................... 58 III. Methodology ................................................................................................................................... 61 A. A Case Study of Dongguan .......................................................................................................... 61 B. Data Collection .............................................................................................................................. 67 C. Data Analysis .................................................................................................................................. 75 Chapter Two Analytical Frame of Governance, Spatial Pattern of Manufacturing Towns, and Emergence of “Invisible Filters” I. Analytical Frame of Governance in Dongguan ............................................................................. 80 A. Theoretical Foundation of Governance ..................................................................................... 80 B. Three Governing Authorities in Dongguan .............................................................................. 84 C. The three Authorities’ Rationalities ............................................................................................ 89 D. Governing Technologies and Governable Spaces ................................................................. 101 E. Docile Bodies vs. Resisters: Rural Migrants as Subjects of Governance ........................... 104 II. Spatial Patterns in Manufacturing Towns of Dongguan ........................................................... 108 A. Skewed Development, and Polarized and Local-Artery-oriented Pattern ......................... 111 B. Village Collectives’ Self-development and Separated Zones of Villages ............................ 119 III. Emergence of Spatial Governance: “Invisible Filters” for the Conveyance of Rural Migrants into Factories ............................................................................................................................ 127 Chapter Three Central Squares: Planned Public Space and the Exercise of Governmental-Pastoral Power in Elevating Suzhi 1 I. Government’s Interpretation and Exhibition of its Guidance ................................................. 138 A. Suzhi and Guidance .................................................................................................................... 138 B. Mass Line of Guidance .............................................................................................................. 143 II. Absorption of High-suzhi Rural Migrants in Central Squares ................................................... 149 A. Urban Form of Central Squares ............................................................................................... 150 B. Cultivation of Central Squares .................................................................................................. 154 C. Government Agencies’ Guidance of Skilled and Higher-educated Rural Migrants as High- suzhi People ........................................................................................................................................... 159 D. Impact of the CALH and Rural Migrants’ Responses .......................................................... 164 Chapter Four Retail Streets: the Combined Exercise of Factory Discipline and Village Sovereignty in Recruiting Unskilled Labor in Unplanned Public Space I. Introduction of a Village in a Manufacturing Town .................................................................. 171 II. Factory Recruitment Coming to the Retail Street ...................................................................... 175 III. Disciplinary Power Exercise upon Rural Migrants in Street Recruitment ......................... 177 A. Examination of Rural Migrant Job Seekers ............................................................................ 177 B. Examination of Factory Recruiters .......................................................................................... 184 IV. The Village Collective’s Security of Street Recruitment ......................................................