Category Archives: Articles

Jenny Chan. 2021. “Hunger for Profit: How Food Delivery Platforms Manage Couriers in China.” Sociologias 23(57): 58-82.

Chan, Jenny. 2021. “Hunger for Profit: How Food Delivery Platforms Manage Couriers in China.” Sociologias 23(57): 58-82. Abstract How do food delivery platform firms, such as Meituan (operated by Tencent) and Ele.me (owned by Alibaba), manage couriers through service contracting rather than formal employment? How do couriers experience control and autonomy at work? Using observation and interviews,Continue reading “Jenny Chan. 2021. “Hunger for Profit: How Food Delivery Platforms Manage Couriers in China.” Sociologias 23(57): 58-82.”

Jenny Chan, with Mark Levinson. 2021. “Dreams and Defiance in Foxconn City: An Interview.” Dissent (Spring): 33-40.

Interviewer: Mark Levison Dissent Spring 2021 China’s rapid economic growth is built on a factory system that relies on hundreds of millions of exploited workers. In the face of repression, those workers have found creative ways to resist. Links to the Full Content: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/dreams-and-defiance-in-foxconn-city-an-interview-with-jenny-chan

Jenny Chan. 2023. Review of Workers and Change in China: Resistance, Repression, Responsiveness, by Manfred Elfstrom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Journal of Labor and Society DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/24714607-bja10130 Full Text for download :

Jenny Chan. 2023. Review of The Urbanization of People: The Politics of Development, Labor Markets, and Schooling in the Chinese City, by Eli Friedman (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022).

Global Labour Journal DOI: https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i3.5627 Full Text for download below:

Jenny Chan. 2022. “The Foxconn Suicide Express.” Pp. 625-34 in Proletarian China: A Century of Chinese Labour, edited by Ivan Franceschini and Christian Sorace. (New York: Verso Books).

Jenny Chan. 2022. “The Foxconn Suicide Express.” Pp. 625-34 in Proletarian China: A Century of Chinese Labour, edited by Ivan Franceschini and Christian Sorace. New York: Verso Books. Link to the Book: https://madeinchinajournal.com/2021/12/01/proletarian-china/ With a workforce of more than one million in mainland China alone, the Taiwanese Foxconn Technology Group is a major contractor for Apple andContinue reading “Jenny Chan. 2022. “The Foxconn Suicide Express.” Pp. 625-34 in Proletarian China: A Century of Chinese Labour, edited by Ivan Franceschini and Christian Sorace. (New York: Verso Books).”

Jenny Chan. 2023. Review of Poverty and Pacification: The Chinese State Abandons the Old Working Class( by Dorothy J. Solinger). The China Journal 89(January):212-15.

The ChinaJournal 89 (January): 212-15. Jenny Chan. 2023. Review of Poverty and Pacification: The Chinese State Abandons the Old Working Class, by Dorothy J. Solinger (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). The China Journal 89 (January), 212-215. DOI: 10.1086/722866 Link to full contant: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/722866

Dorothy J. Solinger, with Jenny Chan. 2022. Poverty and Pacification: A Conversation with Dorothy J. Solinger (Made in China Journal)

Dorothy J. Solinger with Jenny Chan Made in China Journal Volume 7, Issue 2, Jul–Dec 2022, pp. 183–190   Link to full content : https://madeinchinajournal.com/2023/01/19/prometheus-in-china/ PDF below (full text for download)

After the Foxconn Suicides in China: A Roundtable on Labor, the State and Civil Society in Global Electronics

Abstract We seek to tackle myriad problems of a global production system in which China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of consumer electronics products. Dying for an iPhone simultaneously addresses the challenges facing Chinese workers while locating them within the global economy through an assessment of the relationship between Foxconn (the largest electronics manufacturer) andContinue reading “After the Foxconn Suicides in China: A Roundtable on Labor, the State and Civil Society in Global Electronics”

State–labor relations and the emergence of grassroots workers’ organizations in China

By Jenny Chan, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and The International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Labour Movements This article is an excerpt from Jenny Chan’s chapter “Worker Organizing in China: Challenges and Opportunities”, in Robert Ovetz (editor), Workers’ Inquiry and Global Class Struggle: Strategies, Tactics, Objectives , Pluto Press, 2021 June 20, 2021 — Links International Journal ofContinue reading “State–labor relations and the emergence of grassroots workers’ organizations in China”