Migrant Workers in an Era of Religious Revival: Industrial Capitalism, Labour and Christianity in Shenzhen

Abstract

In the reform era, China appears to be caught in a contradictory dual process – the entrenchment of secular values and simultaneously, the notable revival of all forms of religion. However, the existing literature has achieved limited success theorizing how the thriving of faiths constitutes, and co-evolves with, secular modernity and capitalism. This article contributes to this re-theorization by bringing migration, labour and industrial capitalism to bear on faith and religious practices. Our empirical study in Shenzhen focuses on the formation of rural-to-urban migrant workers’ Christian faith. We examine the ways in which migrant workers manoeuvre religion as a cultural, symbolic and discursive resource to come to terms with, but also sometimes to question and counteract, the double exploitation enforced by state regulation and labour relations. In the meantime, however, this article also argues that migrants’ efforts in self-transformation through the discourses of benfen and suzhi, and their theologically mediated interpretation of alienation, labour exploitation and social inequality, overlap with, and reinforce, the agenda of producing docile, productive bodies of migrants, an agenda endorsed by the state–capital coalition. This research opens new opportunities for theorizing how capitalist secularity and religious orientation implicate one another in the current Chinese society.

摘要

在后改革时代，中国似乎被卷入一个矛盾的双向转变过程–不断巩固的世俗价值与显著而全面的宗教复兴之间的交织。然而，现存的文献对宗教信仰与世俗现代性和资本主义如何相互构建和共同演进仍缺乏理论化。本文将移民、劳动以及工业资本主义引入对宗教信仰和实践的考察，由此进行重新的理论化。我们的实证研究关注了深圳市农民工的基督教信仰形成的过程。我们研究了农民工如何将宗教运用为一种文化、符号和话语的资源去与国家管制和劳动关系共建的双层剥削达成协商、妥协，甚至在某些情况去质疑和抵抗这种剥削关系。然而，本研究同时认为农民工试图通过“本分”和“素质”的话语以及对异化、劳动剥削和社会不平等的神学解读，实现对自我的转化；但这种自我转化部分嵌套于，并且强化了，国家-资本联盟对驯服、生产性的移民身体的生产。本研究对资本主义世俗性与宗教价值如何相互塑造提供了新的理论视角。