At the Roots of Labour Activism: Chinese and Cambodian Garment Workers in Comparative Perspective

ABSTRACT

In China extensive, co-ordinated strikes such as those that have taken place in Cambodia in recent years remain rare, with most protests initiated by Chinese workers contained inside single factories or industrial zones. Also, while Cambodian workers often mobilise for their interests and broader policy issues, such as the determination of the minimum wage, Chinese workers largely limit themselves to protests against violations of their legal rights. How can these different patterns of labour activism be explained? Through factory gate surveys and interviews conducted during the summer of 2016 in a sample of Hong Kong-owned garment factories in Dongguan and Phnom Penh, this study provides a comparative analysis of the root causes of labour activism in China and Cambodia. In particular, the article focuses on three elements that play an important role in determining labour activism: the expectations of the workers regarding wages; the workers’ perception of the labour law and the legal system; and trade union pluralism.     

Putting the Chinese State in its Place: A March from Passive Revolution to Hegemony

The Chinese party-state has been depicted in three major forms by the existing studies – the authoritarian state, developmental state and corporatist state. These depictions, however, only offer a partial understanding of the Chinese party-state and have failed to grasp its totality. Drawing upon the theoretical insights of Antonio Gramsci, this article contends that Chinese economic reform inaugurated in 1978 has been a top-down passive revolution and that, after three decades of reform, the role of the Chinese state has been changing from steering the country’s passive revolution to establishing capitalist hegemony. However, it should be noted that although the Chinese state has been undergoing a hegemonic transformation, capitalist hegemony has not been unambiguously established in the country. Some workers have given consent to the ruling class’s leadership, but a segment of workers has been able to transgress hegemony to formulate a radical critique of capitalists and the state. The transition to hegemony in China is a chaotic and tumultuous process of class struggles between the ruling class and the working class.     

17、18世纪华商在越南海贸领域的经营及影响

作为越南海贸市场最具影响力的外商群体,华商主导了17、18世纪越南与日本、中国及东南亚其他国家的贸易.华商的贸迁活动,一方面促进了越南经济发展,加强了越南与外部世界的联系;另一方面,提高了当地的生活水平,促进了越南社会风尚的开化与审美观念的改变;同时,还在一定程度上带动了越南本土商人参与本国海外贸易.     

Understanding the survival of post-Communist corruption in contemporary Russia: the influence of historical legacies

Corruption is widespread throughout the former Communist states, and it is particularly severe and entrenched in Russia. Despite the fact that Russia's contemporary corruption has recently become a subject of analysis, there is, however, no study that has addressed the role of the Communist legacy in the development of various aspects of corruption. This paper contributes to the debates through, first, disentangling the complex phenomenon that is corruption, and focusing on its three aspects: supply, demand, and the attitude of the population. Second, the paper also contributes to the literature on modern corruption by explicitly focusing on the role of the historical legacy in these different aspects of corruption. The study is based on several rich data-sets on corruption and on an original data-set compiled to measure the percentage share of Communists in various regions of Russia in the last decades of the USSR (1970s–1980s). The analysis presented in the paper uncovers different roles of the Communist legacies across the development of various aspects of corruption. By doing so, the paper contributes to the literature on historical legacies in general, on Communist legacies in particular, as well as to the broader literature on the causes of corruption in transitional societies.     

从中国妇女受辱案看马来西亚华文报的历史责任

本文以中国女子受辱事件为观察对象,论述了马来西亚华文报纸的特点与功能,指出它们具有高度的新闻职业精神、履行华人喉舌职能、维护华人权益和帮助政府改善施政等特点。     

在国际舆论中有效地传播中华的声音——对海外华文媒体访谈的思考

根据对海外华文媒体高层领导的访谈,笔者认为华文媒体在国际舆论中起着独特的作用。它们帮助华人融入当地文化,互相沟通;积极传播大中华文化;与中国媒体相互配合,扩大有利于中国的正面国际舆论。但是华文媒体也存在受众面窄、规模小、观点偏激、缺乏高度和影响力等问题。在未来的发展中,华文媒体首先要掌握对媒体的主导权,另外要加强华文媒体之间的联合、与当地主流媒体的合作以及与中国各方面的联系。     

Cracking Hegemony in Thailand: Gramsci,Bourdieu and the Dialectics of Rebellion

Gramsci's notion of “hegemony,” like Bourdieu's concept of “habitus,” seems designed to explain accommodation to existing social structures, rather than resistance. In this paper, however, I draw from the Prison Notebooks some arguments that contribute to a Gramscian understanding of how hegemony may break apart under the weight of the same uneven development processes central to hegemony. Drawing also from Bourdieu, I argue that the conceptions of “hegemony” and “habitus” inscribe the possibility of resistance within the embodied experience of accommodation to class rule. I then elaborate a dialectical, Gramscian-Bourdieusian account of the Red Shirt movement in Thailand, showing that the seeds for the destruction of royalist hegemony in Thailand have been sown in the embodied processes of accommodation to ruling class hegemony. The breadth and depth of challenges to this hegemony, moreover, are evident not only from the activities of the Red Shirt movement and regional discontent in Northern and Northeast Thailand but from the resistance of working class women to attempts to police their sexuality and limit their consumerism. The refusal of Thai elites to accept the breadth and depth of Thailand's dispositional transformation has legitimised – in their eyes – the brutal crackdown on Red Shirt protestors that resulted in the April-May 2010 massacres. Yet repression can only kill off political leaders and specific parties; it will not likely derail the growing resentment of ordinary Thais over elitist class rule.     

东南亚华人在中国软实力提升中的推动作用与制约因素

冷战结束以来,随着中国国力的增长,中国与东盟国家关系的进一步发展深化,中国在东南亚的影响力有日渐增强之势.华侨华人作为一个特殊的移民群体,他们不仅在促进中国与东南亚国家政经合作和文化交流等方面发挥着桥梁作用,无形中也推动了中国在东南亚软实力的提升.主要表现为通过对中国发展模式和先进经验的介绍和引荐、对中华传统文化的传承和传播、对中国外交政策与外交行为的支持与解释等方式,在促进东南亚国家对中国的了解与认同的同时,大大提升了中国的国家形象和影响力.未来如何更有效地借用这一资源,减少并消除相关制约因素,促进中国软实力的建设与发展,实现中国与东盟国家的双赢,是值得进一步思考和关注的问题.     

保护、传承与发扬--20世纪80年代以来马来西亚华人社团发展华人文化的举措与动态分析

华人社团向政府提交国家文化备忘录,发表文化方面的宣言等,积极谋求华人文化发展的有利政治空间。为更好地保护和发扬华人文化,华人成立各种文化社团组织,并举办华人文化节等活动。华人社团的活动和举措具有主导性甚至领导性,它们对于独立后马来西亚华人文化的保护、传承和发扬发挥了举足轻重的作用。     

当代马华报刊文本中的华族政治参与意识表达

本文通过对《星洲日报》和《南洋商报》及其他马华主要报刊相关言论和社论的文本分析,揭示了20世纪80-90年代期间马来西亚华人政治参与意识的变化,包括民主政治思想的启蒙,民主政治实践的探索,以及超越种族政治的发展变化过程。     

Sweat or No Sweat: Foreign Workers in the Garment Industry in Malaysia

In the last decade factory owners, in response to brand-name Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) parameters, have joined associations that verify (through a monitoring and audit system) that management does not exploit labour. There have been no reports of violations of codes of conduct concerning Malaysian workers but for foreign workers on contract there are certain areas that have been reported. These areas, including trade union membership, the withholding of workers' passports and unsuitable accommodation, generally escape notice because auditors who monitor factory compliance do not question the terms of contracts as long as they comply with national labour standards. This paper is based on research with foreign workers in Malaysia and argues that despite the success of the anti-sweatshop movement in a global context, the neo-liberal state in Malaysia continues to place certain restrictions on transnational labour migrants which breach garment industry codes of conduct. Available evidence does not support the assumption that CSR practices provide sufficient protection for both citizen and foreign workers on contract in the garment industry.     

全球化进程中的华人离散社群问题探讨

本文在回顾国内外学术研究的基础上,探讨了全球化进程中的族群离散及全球化与华人离散社群的关系问题,着重考察和分析了华人离散社群的文化内涵以及政治认同与文化认同的分合,揭示其本土化与跨国性的一些历史含义,指出在全球化多重语境下华人离散社群出现了认同的流离和转向。     

Gender,Work and Resistance: South Korean Textile Industry in the 1970s

This paper examines the forces behind South Korean women workers' labour activism in the 1970s, an era of rapid export-orientated industrialisation. Most of the labour strikes initiated by women occurred in the labour-intensive manufacturing sector, and they were in sharp contrast to the overall labour quiescence of male workers during the same period. The actions of South Korean women refute widely held assumptions about the docility of Asian women workers. This case study suggests that women rebel when their lives undergo drastic changes under a set of macro and micro circumstances. Women dialectically interact with the capitalist-patriarchal structure as conscious human agents, and the result of such interaction is their gender- and class-based collective resistance.     

"体制外"增长与"体制内"导向:从身份认定看中国留学生政策与侨务政策的关系

中国海外留学生的规模是引人注目的,中国的侨务政策是独特的.留学人员作为有着较强跨国"流动性"和一定"海外关系"的群体以及潜在或可能的移民,中国目前对于他们有着怎样的政策,这些政策与中国原有对待其海外移民的侨务政策又有着怎样的关联与不同?本文试图着眼于此,在概述和评估有关中国改革开放以来留学生派出及回国政策的同时,以身份认定作为探讨政策导向及其预期目标和影响的基本出发点,对中国留学生政策与侨务政策之间的关系作一初步考察.     

缅甸华裔精英与知名侨领概述

缅甸的华裔精英为缅甸的国家独立和民族解放作出了巨大的贡献 ,但知名侨领与华裔精英不同 ,他们不参与或很少参与缅甸政治 ,而在促进华人社区发展和中缅友好交往方面起着积极作用。他们有爱国的优良传统 ,表现在热心慈善事业、办报、办学、支持祖国革命、向国内投资、促进中缅友好关系。     

从利益攸关方到战略再保证:霸权衰落下的中美关系

近五年来,美国对华政策定位经历了从利益攸关方、中美国、G2到战略再保证的转变,也成为当前国际关系领域研究的热门话题。这种转变与美国霸权衰落紧密相连,是美国为了延续霸权,希望中国继续融入其霸权体系的手段之一。面对复杂多变的国际局势,战略选择成为中国当前必须慎之又慎的问题。历史证明,与霸权国的对抗没有出路,因此中国只能选择合作。机制化的双边协调对话必然是今后中美关系保持良性发展的趋势,也是中国努力的方向,但也必须时刻警惕美国对华战略中的陷阱。     

Alpine Masculinity: A Gendered Figuration of Capital in the Patagonian Andes

This article investigates the Patagonian ecotourism industry and the spatial production of gender privilege. The analysis attends to how the spatial practices of park rangers, tourism guides and climbers create a gendered space of capital accumulation that devalues and marginalises othered subjects – such as women and non-alpine men – within specific domains of nature. Developing the concept of a figuration of capital, this article argues that the ecotourism industry has facilitated the rise of an alpine masculine subject based upon key bodily values: robust physicality, a conservationist ethic and heroic narration about engaging wilderness.     

华侨国内权益保护立法模式探析

随着中国社会和经济的发展,公民权益保障方面的法律越来越健全。适时赋予华侨完全的国内公民待遇,逐步淡化乃至适时取消对其的适当照顾,增加有关公民权益保障一般法中的涉侨内容,是保护华侨国内权益的有效方法。学界通说的制订特别法保护华侨国内权益,因其立法和执法成本巨大,并非保护华侨权益的最佳选择。保护华侨国内权益的立法模式由特别法转向一般法,以及由此引起的侨务工作的调整,是一个需要引起华侨工作者高度重视的理论和现实问题。     

马来西亚华人的三一教信仰考察

早期,三一教在兴化人中传播。作为一个小的方言群,兴化人具有较强的凝聚力,但与此同时,马来西亚的三一教也因为兴化人的这一特征而呈现封闭保守的特征。直到近来,以芙蓉志元堂为代表的三一教堂,才开始注重对自身、对三一教的主动宣传与发扬;也有更多其他方言群尤其是闽南人的信众纷纷加入三一教。三一教教堂的宗教特色和活动有其独特之处。     

对雅加达华人中生代的考察与分析--兼论各次文化群体在"印尼华人文化"建构中的作用与使命

本文运用文化学、社会学的理论和方法,坚持从印尼华人的实际出发,通过实地考察、访谈调查和资料重释的途径,具体剖析了雅加达华人中生代这一印尼华人重要的次群体,展示了印尼华人在印尼独立后的自我调适情况,分析了印尼华人今后的发展趋势及其在印尼社会重构和印尼民族重组中的地位和作用.