Operational Strategies Of Migrant Workers, Social Capital - The Case Of Shanghai

After 1978, especially since the 1990s, more and more peasants have left rural areas and floated into big cities to seek work, they have become peasant workers. In this process, an obvious phenomenon occurs when some peasant workers just arrive in cities, they have no work, and they live in the rooms without good conditions, however, after a period of time, they not only find a relative steady job, but also help their relatives and countrymen to enter cities and to get jobs. Why they manage to do that? The author thinks that, to a certain degree, it is the consequence of social capital operation of peasant workers. This thesis concerns strategies of social capital operation of peasant workers. The author applies the Social Capital Theory to analyze this phenomenon.In the first part, the author brings two questions that will be discussed in the thesis: (1) How do peasant workers establish and maintain the networks that benefit them, and How do peasant workers acquire and develop their social skills which can be used to produce and reproduce social capital? (2) At the macro-level, What factor can influence peasant workers choose and use strategies of social capital operation? Also in this part, the author defines the object of the thesis peasant workers from two aspects 'peasant' and 'worker'; introduces the theory of this thesis Pierre Bourdieu's Social Capital Theory; informs that the thesis applies the qualitative research.Next, the author advances three basic strategies of social capital operation: (1) establish and restructure social networks selectively, (2) reciprocally exchange with a time-lag and (3) accomplish transformation between different types of capital. At the same time, the author displays their features.Then, from two aspects, one is individual peasant worker, the other is the organization of peasant workers set up independently, by citing the research material, the author describes their concrete strategies of social capital operation in cities, and compares the difference of concrete strategies between individuals and organizations.In the forth part, the author analyzes the macro factors that influence peasant workers choose and use diverse strategies of social capital operation. The macro factors are composed of dual social structure, chaxu geju, economic institution, cultural norms, and supply of public goods and public services.At the last part of the thesis, after comparing peasant workers with citizens, the author poses another two questions: (1) In the process of social capital operation of peasant workers, Which role do the government and the other social organization play, are they absent? (2) Peasant workers and citizens, Who have stronger faculty in social capital operation?...