Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
10460922 Language & Communication 2013 8 Pages PDF
Abstract
This essay offers a discursive approach to studying privatization in China. Through an analysis of gendered metaphors and sexualized discourses against migrant women circulated during the privatization process of a state enterprise in Beijing, the essay examines how these gendered metaphors as a form of auto-communication reflects male workers' energeia and representational agency and how gender was mobilized by male workers to contest the new labor arbitrage which prefers hiring cheaper migrant women and management's prioritization of privatization over workers' welfare. The analysis focuses on the way gender constitutes an organizing principle of privatization that displaces class tension onto the devalued laboring bodies of migrant women. The essay suggests that both language and gender can become resources for mobilizing people for or against privatization.
Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities Arts and Humanities Language and Linguistics
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