Rachel Murphy, ed., Labour Migration and Social Development in Contemporary China

Excerpt

This edited volume brings together disparate research on Chinese internal labor migration that addresses “social development,” that is, noneconomic problems. Scholarly writing on noneconomic aspects of Chinese labor migration is scattered, and the best works are over a decade old, so a collection of this nature is timely and important. According to the editor, the book “aim[s] to redress the relative neglect of social concerns by incorporating them into [an] exploration of salient aspects of the relationship between migration and development.” This statement of purpose aptly captures the volume’s strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, the eight chapters provide a rich source of information on housing, schooling, social security, reproductive health, labor rights, remittances, and nongovernmental organizations for the migrants. On the other hand, little attempt is made to integrate the chapters, or to bring the empirical work into serious conversation with broader theories of citizenship, stratification, capitalism, and the state. …