Email: mq98@cornell.edu

Affiliation: Global Development, Cornell University

Nationality: Chinese

"Left behind" women on the move: gender, seasonal migration, and social reproduction in southwest China

Abstract

'Left behind' women, the population often deemed not suitable for or outright rejected by urban labor markets, are becoming the main labor force for an agrarian transition in China's southwest. Following the local state's efforts to modernize its agriculture sector, larger specialized farms that focus on a single lucrative crop and rely on hired labor are expanding rapidly in Yunnan province, southwest China. Under these circumstances, rural women and the elderly, who used to stay behind to take care of rural homes and plots while other family members were away for migrant work, are mobilized as a cheap labor force for commercial farms. Labor and migration scholars show that disadvantaged women constitute most of the informal, temporary, and seasonal labor force employed in high-value commercial agriculture. They suggest that the devaluation of women's labor provides comparative advantages for farms and is justified by their role in social reproduction. These lines of scholarship largely explore capital-labor relations in production spheres. Drawing on recent work in social reproduction theory, this paper highlights the constitutive dynamics between sites of production and reproduction. I ask how the changing dynamics and politics of social reproduction contribute to the 'left behind' population's move into a highly exploitative and precarious agriculture wage labor force? By centering on social reproductive dynamics, this paper aims to shift away from a productivist analysis of exploitation and reorient analysis to the reproduction of human life in the process of agrarian transition.

This paper is based on fieldwork I conducted in Chuxiong Yi autonomous prefecture of Yunnan province, where there is a booming horticulture industry supported by a seasonal workforce from surrounding ethnic minority communities. My findings show: (1) the politics of care in the Yi community constrain women's mobility and employment opportunities, making them vulnerable subjects of local horticulture expansion; (2) the changing expectations for and rising economic demands of social reproduction drive these women into agriculture wage work, which has implications on smallholders' farming livelihoods and decision-making; and (3) the trend of young migrant women returning and being relegated back to family labor enables older women's entry into wage labor. I thus argue that agrarian transition in the region is enabled and sustained by persisting and emergent forms of gendered and generational exploitation of rural women and the elderly. This work contributes to feminist political economy and critical agrarian studies by exploring how various forms of women's care, labor, and work are interacting with the dynamics of agrarian change, highlighting the intersectional dynamics of agrarian transition along lines of class, gender, and generations. It provides a feminist critique of the current agrarian development path and policies in China and the global south more generally. I show that informal wage work for these rural inhabitants is not leading to accumulation and prosperity as promised by the state and development institutions. Rather, it barely addresses their reproductive needs and places them in precarious work conditions.

Bio

Miaomiao (Mira) Qi is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Global Development at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the intersecting gender and class dynamics of agrarian change in southwestern China. Currently, she is working on multiple publications based on her dissertation project titled "Horticulture Boom in A Hot Valley: Gender, Labor, and Small-scale Land Accumulation in China's Southwest Peripheries." Mira is a recipient of the "Dean's Excellence Scholar" at Cornell and her dissertation project received funding from multiple sources, including the Wenner-Gren Foundation and a Luce/ACLS travel grant in China Studies. She previously completed a master's degree in community development at the University of California, Davis, where she conducted research on the localization of alternative food networks (AFNs) in China, exploring the intended and unintended consequences of AFNs on rural development. She published a part of this work in the journal Agriculture and Human Values. While completing her master's degree, she also worked for the California-based Community Alliance with Family Farmers' Farm-to-School Program. In addition to her academic work, Mira has also written articles on topics related to agri-food systems and gender inequality for the public and published on English and Chinese media platforms.