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SUMMARY:Precarious Accumulation: Fast Fashion Bosses in Transnational Guangzhou
DESCRIPTION:Anthropology Colloquium with Nellie Chu\nWednesday\, 6/3/2026 @ 3:30\nSocial Sciences 1\, Rm. 261 or Zoom \n\n\nTalk Abstract: This presentation takes the audience through the maze of dark alleyways of Guangzhou’s urban villages\, where small-scale\, unregulated jiagongchang sustain the “just in time” delivery of fast fashion worldwide. With an ethnographic focus on the Wongs\, a migrant family from neighboring Guangxi Province\, the talk elaborates the paradoxical condition of stalled mobility\, whereby migrants describe their labor as “free” even though they struggle to keep up with the rapid pace of fast fashion production. \nAs migrant bosses\, migrant bosses remain caught in the double bind of evading exploitation by clients and competitors while also exploiting other migrant laborers. Their experience demonstrates that accumulation by exploitation is a relational and dynamic practice that involves uncertain assertions of discipline and uneven power. Over time\, the freedom of physical and social mobility they experience wears off and transforms into a sense of freedom deferred. Stalled mobility highlights how migrant entrepreneurs like the Wongs\, and the temporary migrant workers they hire\, must negotiate the contradictory dynamics of mobility and immobility\, as well as freedom and unfreedom. These paradoxical conditions leave migrants vulnerable to the interests of multinational corporations like SHEIN that mobilize migratory labor power to serve the e-commerce platforms for global fast fashion.\n\nSpeaker Bio: Nellie Chu is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke Kunshan University. Her ethnographic and interdisciplinary research focuses on transnational and domestic migrant entrepreneurs across the global supply chains of fast fashion in southern China. Her teaching interests include transnational capitalism\, migration (domestic and transnational)\, gendered labor\, fashion\, and commodity culture. \nShe is the author of the book\, Precarious Accumulation: Fast Fashion Bosses in Transnational Guangzhou (Duke University Press\, 2026). She has papers published in leading academic journals\, including Cultural Anthropology\, positions: east asia critique\, Modern Asian Studies\, Culture\, Theory\, and Critique\, and Journal of Modern Craft. Her work can also be found in Made in China Journal\, Youth Circulations\, and Noema Magazine. She has served on the editorial board of the flagship journal\, Cultural Anthropology (2022-2025).
URL:https://events.ucsc.edu/event/precarious-accumulation-fast-fashion-bosses-in-transnational-guangzhou/
LOCATION:Social Sciences 1\, Social Sciences 1\, Santa Cruz\, CA\, 95064
CATEGORIES:Lectures & Presentations,Seminars
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