(Un-)becoming Chinese creatives: transnational mobility of creative labour in a ‘global’ Beijing

ABSTRACT

Drawing on qualitative research conducted on transnational creative workers in Beijing, this article shows how the vibrant interaction between global cultural industries and the local Chinese economy propels transnational labour mobility and affects the subjectification of transnational creative workers. Having come to China to enhance their careers, these professionals have been incorporated into the Chinese creative workforce, contributing to the Party State’s aspiration to use creativity as a growth engine for the economy and as a form of soft power. In terms of these workers’ everyday experience, however, China’s aspiration to ‘foreign creativity’ does not necessarily guarantee a privileged life. The State’s restrictions on migration and the insecure working circumstances within the Chinese creative workplace discourage these transnationals from fully integrating in Chinese society and the Chinese labour market. At the same time, this research shows that the precarious lives led by transnational creative workers in Beijing are also productive and generate the conditions for a situated cosmopolitan subjectivity. Such a cosmopolitan subjectivity fosters respect for cultural difference and relations of mutual understanding and care among both international and local subjects.

KEYWORDS:

• Labour mobility
• precarity
• subjectivity
• creative industries
• creative labour
• China
• cosmopolitanism

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by European Research Council (ERC), under the project ‘From Made in China to Created in China—A Comparative Study of Creative Practice and Production in Contemporary China’ (ChinaCreative Project No.616882). The author thanks Jeroen de Kloet, Esther Peeren, Ned Rossiter and the anonymous reviewers who provided insight and expertise that greatly improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Generally, according to Jim McGuigan, ‘all human labour is potentially creative labour’ (2010, 326) and cultural work is a ‘sub-category’ of it (324). However, this article is not a study of concepts of creativity and labour, but an empirically based study of the experiences of international professionals working in the cultural industries of China.

2. Such reluctance can be demonstrated through the frequent endorsement of ‘soft power’ and ‘national cultural security’ discourses in Chinese cultural industry policies (Keane 2013), as well as through the controversies that have arisen around the terms ‘creative industries’ and ‘creativity’ (O’Connor and Xin 2006, 271–283; Keane 2009, 431–443). Furthermore, the Chinese State never embraced the ‘creative class’ discourse in its cultural industries policies (Keane 2009).

3. This study is part of a larger project on Chinese cultural production and labour subjectivity. The research fieldwork for the project lasted from July 2016 to May 2018 (6 months, 3 visits) and yielded ethnographic observations and over 40 in-depth interviews with creative workers from the television, film, design, art and new media sectors.

4. Among those with Western passports, more participants from the Netherlands have been interviewed because of the author’s own social network.

5. Please note that this is a non-academic work.

6. This restriction refers to foreign companies that want to do business in these fields. See: Opinions on foreign investment in Chinese cultural sectors 2005.