Representing Presant Workers through Documentary Films in Post-Mao China

In this talk, Dr. Eric Florence explores and document how Chinese peasant workers are represented in Chinese documentary films in post-Mao China. Interrogating how workers’ experiences of migration and labor are mediated through a selection of documentary films, he will argue that these films provide a valuable vantage point in order to engage with the rich and highly contradictory features of peasant workers’ identity and agency made of struggles, hardship, as well as disillusion, but also of desires, aspirations and hopes. The material used for this talk includes a selection of Chinese documentary films, popular literature, songs, ethnographic observation, as well as scientific literature on migration and labor in post-Mao China.