Research Seminar: ‘Contesting Inequalities: Mediated Labor Activism and Rural Migrant Workers in China’

Siyuan Yin’s ethnographic study explores how mediated labor activism advances worker mobilization, feminist activism, and counter-discourses amid China’s authoritarian constraints

Over the past decades, China’s rapid economic growth has created the world’s second-largest economy, yet social inequality has deepened, particularly for rural migrant workers. Harsh labor conditions have fueled rising worker protests, but in China’s authoritarian context, strikes often face suppression and receive scant mainstream coverage. As a result, alternative mediated practices have become crucial and complex elements of worker resistance. In Contesting Inequalities, Siyuan Yin examines the historical and structural forces shaping the experiences of migrant workers, especially women, and the interplay between media and collective action. Drawing on long-term, multi-sited, and digital ethnography, and informed by feminist methodologies, Yin analyzes mediated labor activism through theater, advocacy music, and digital community media. She shows how these practices foster new subjectivities, counter-discourses, and informal networks and demonstrates that the rise in Chinese working-class resistance underscores the deep connections between class struggles and feminist activism.

Siyuan Yin is assistant professor from the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Yin's research spans the fields of feminist media studies, cultural studies, political economy, and social movements. Her book Contesting Inequalities was recently published by Stanford University Press. She has also published in leading journals such as Capital & Class, Cultural Studies, and International Journal of Communication, among others.

Please contact mediaresearchsupport@leeds.ac.uk to request the event link.