JennyChan.PhDThesis.2014.FINAL

addition to migrant workers and student interns, I come to learn that managerial staff,
teachers (who were in charge of the student internship programs), and local
government officials have invariably been drawn into a fiercely competitive
high-tech industry in national development, and co-produce the dialectics of
corporate domination and labor resistance within global capitalism. This writing, in
piercing through the image of global corporate citizenship and a harmonious Chinese
society, is a small part of the evolving trans-border movement to amplify workers’
voices.
Research Data Collection
By using qualitative research tools, such as semi-structured interviews and
observations over an extended period of time, I aim to make sense of workers’ fears,
desires, and rationales behind their individual and collective actions. During my
fieldwork between 2011 and 2012, I lived in two working-class communities for six
months and paid regular visits to workers and their families in private living rooms,
factory dormitory open spaces, hospitals (where I met with injured workers), and
other public places. Labor rights advocates and university researchers from Hong
Kong and mainland China first introduced me to a number of interviewees. I then
invited more workers, managers, student interns, and teachers (who were dispatched
to the factories) to participate in additional interviews. Of the more than 30 Foxconn
manufacturing complexes across the Chinese mainland, I chose two main field sites:
Foxconn Shenzhen in Guangdong and Foxconn Chengdu in Sichuan.
Foxconn Shenzhen,
Guangdong Province
Foxconn Chengdu,
Sichuan Province
Founding year 1988 2010
Factory
locations
1. Foxconn Longhua
2. Foxconn Guanlan
Both are in Bao’an District
1. “Northern plant”
2. “Southern plant”
Both are in Pi County
Number of Over 500,000 persons as of 2010; Nearly 200,000 persons
employees now more than 400,000 persons
Corporate Apple, Dell, HP, Amazon, and Apple only
buyers many others
Products iPads, iPhones, iPods, Kindles,
printers, game-consoles, etc.
iPads only
Source: Author’s research data.
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