| Bringing gender perspective in, this ethnographic research explores the situations and practices of rural-to-urban migrant workers in Contemporary China. It focuses on the interaction between gender structure and migration process as well as the influence of migration experience on migrant workers' gender identity. Taking the diversity of migrant workers into consideration, this research divides them into groups according to their sex and marital status and discusses the key issues group by group.;This research fills the empirical gaps of lack of attention to male migrant workers and enriches the understanding of the new generation of migrant workers. At the theoretical level, it emphasizes the complexity of gender structure. Gender structure is neither static nor isolated. The interactions between the gender structure and other structures have critical impacts on individual opportunity and situation.;Based on first-hand qualitative data collected by two fieldworks, the following research findings are concluded. First, traditional gender expectations push rural men into participating in rural-to-urban migration, to a great extent. After becoming migrant workers, these men develop a subordinated and marginalized masculinity under the interaction among the gender structure, the dual rural and urban structure and the class structure. Married male migrant workers try to reconstruct their masculinities through pursuing upward mobility, but they are frustrated by an unfair promotion system and the segregated labor markets. Secondly, the practices of married female migrant workers have twofold significance. On the one hand, migration becomes increasingly a way for them to resist traditional gender order in rural areas. On the other hand, traditional gender order has been reproduced since gender structure still shapes their choices and practices in the process of migration deeply. Meanwhile, married women are empowered through their migration practices, showing in domestic division of labor, power relations and emotional attachment. Thirdly, rural-to-urban migration brings many changes in the situation of single migrant workers, including economic independence, being out of control and being affected by urban and peer sub-cultures. Under this background, they practise their love and sexual behaviors. However, single men and single women attach different meanings to these practices and consequently have been affected differently by their intimate relationships developed after migration. Nonetheless, their practices of love and sexual behaviors have posed challenges to the "new arranged marriage" in rural areas. |
