For nearly four decades, China's manufacturing boom has been powered by the labor of 287 million rural migrant workers, who travel seasonally between villages where they farm for subsistence and cities where they work. Yet recently local governments have moved away from manufacturing and toward urban expansion and construction as a development strategy. As a result, at least 88 million rural people to date have lost rights to village land. In Beneath the China Boom, Julia Chuang follows the trajectories of rural workers, who were once supported by a village welfare state and are now landless. This book provides a view of the undertow of China's economic success, and the periodic crises-a rural fiscal crisis, a runaway urbanization-that it first created and now must resolve.

About the Author
Julia Chuang is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston College.


Reviews

"This book is an outstanding new contribution to the literature on China's urbanization as well as on socioeconomic development more broadly. Moreover, it is a very engaging read. I would highly recommend it to experts, scholars, as well as students from related disciplinary backgrounds."

* Asien: The German Journal on Contemporary Asia *
"Chuang's book is a tour de force in revealing the complexities and interconnections of China's economic boom, especially the more recent developments occurring in the country's interior provinces." * Exertions *
"Beneath the China Boom is an excellent example of unlocking large-scale social processes through multisited ethnography." * American Journal of Sociology *



Book Information
ISBN 9780520305458
Author Julia Chuang
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Weight(grams) 363g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 23mm