Collapse And Reconstruction:Image Analysis Of The Working Class In Contemporary China(1999-2011)

Image Analysis of the Working Class in Contemporary China (1999-2011) Abstract:Since entering the new century, Chinese working class has become the stock issue of discussing the second great transformation that contemporary China is undergoing; and the working class also became the subject and content of the artistic work of all kinds and styles. This paper tries to tease out the history of formation and collapse and the possibility of reconstruction of Chinese working class by analyzing TV series, documentaries and movies produced since the21st century.There is no exception that the literary works this paper chooses are all under great influence of "the age of arranged discourse". In the de-political age, the working class doomed to be the relic and elegy in the history. This style of narration penetrates into the details of daily life which point out that it is working class that shouldered the risk and cost while transforming to market and the reality of working class division as well. But these pieces of narration failed to grasp and comprehend the internal relevance of working class formation and collapse. This leads to serious consequences that on the one hand the public would not have a clear picture of the history of working class modeled in the socialist founding movement and on the other hand social reality of the transformation of party politics behind working class division would not be concerned.This paper devotes to reality historization and history actualization. Referring to reality historization, we should place the hidden paradox of working class formation in a longer context of historical development in order to detect that this paradox is not produced under domestic market mechanism by global capital grasping opportunities of Chinese urban reform; but a structural contradiction which is inherent in the course of socialist industrialization. To some extent, urban reform in1990s was right to answer the crisis emerged in the unsuccessful reform in1980s which attempted to overcome this inherent structural contradiction. In terms of history actualization, we should not only take the socialist industrialization as a process of material practice under the background of establishing military industry on the basis of the fact that China is a backward agricultural country, but also view it as conscious cultural creation that establishes dominant position for rock-bottom workers in social life and national political life. This becomes a precondition and important tradition to acquire possibility and legality in the equal participation in political affairs for those rural migrant works who urgently need to make their voices heard to change the voiceless situation in politics.This paper has four parts. The first part mainly deals with the formation and decomposition of Chinese working class in the period of the founding of the People’s Republic of China and tries to outline the internal crisis of Chinese working class subjectivity; the second part talks about the collapse of the working class, especially the disappearance of world in which working class could live with dignity; the third part discusses whether the rock-bottom working class has lost its class consciousness or not; the last part analyzes the politics with dignity and possibility of working class reconstruction through underlying discourse.