Walking on the Edge: Rural–Urban Migration in Chinese Migrant Workers’ Poetry

While migration from rural areas to cities has always existed in China, rural–urban migrant workers (nongmingong) emerged as a distinct social subject in the 1980s and 1990s, providing the low-priced humanpower to the labour-intensive industry developing after the start of the Reform and Opening Up policy in 1978. The migrant labour-force has enabled China to experience unprecedented economic growth, but the social and human price has been steep. In particular, migrants have limited access to basic public services in the cities unless they manage to obtain a urban household registration, thus (re)producing conditions of marginality, exploitation and precarity. Against this background, the chapter addresses what generally goes by the name of “migrant-worker literature” (dagong wenxue), i.e. the literary output produced by individuals belonging to this mobile labouring class. Initially published in local magazines and independent journals, this literary strain acquired increasing visibility as some authors were noted for their talent and actively promoted by institutions that are part of the government’s cultural apparatus. Concentrating on migrant workers’ poetry, the chapter briefly outlines the history of the genre and engages with critical scholarship produced in Chinese and Euro-American academia. While acknowledging that Chinese rural-urban migration is ultimately inseparable from labour, the chapter focuses on key questions of displacement (from social, emotional and affective viewpoints), spatiality (countryside and city, and urban marginalisation), the perceived possibilities—and material limits— of autonomous agency, and the role of poetry. The discussion is substantiated by the textual analysis of two case studies. The first case study is of Liu Dongwu,a migrant poet who was particularly prolific in the 1990s and 2000s, before becoming a professional cultural critic. Stylistically rich, Liu Dongwu’s poetry deals with the material and psychological effects of the condition of urban marginality, particularly urban anomie, the “floating” condition, and the precarity of a life dependent on papers (household registration and temporary residence permit). The second case study is of Wu Xia, a female poet mainly active in the 2000s. Far more hopeful than Liu about the possibilities offered by the city, she uses love as a trope symbolising the chasm between her desires and the reality of exclusion. Analysis privileges works that evade pure mimesis through specific poetic resources, and is reinforced by intertextual references. Furthermore, both authors are based in the highly industrialised area of Shenzhen and Dongguan, in south China, as the destination of their migration. Besides offering an overview of migrant workers’ poetry, the chapter demonstrates that migrant-worker literature is not mere ethnographic material but a body of specific literary representations of the social world, in particular showing the identity impasse experienced by rural-urban migrants as a result of the systemic exclusion and discrimination they face.