Reconstituting the neoliberal subjectivity of migrants: Christian theo-ethics and migrant workers in Shenzhen, China

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the connections between the neoliberal governance of migrants and Christian theo-ethics. Although regulating migrant labourers has been explored as one of the primary mechanisms of neoliberal governance, the ‘actually existing’ workings of this neoliberal migrant regime and in particular its everyday encounters with locally based ethical agents are relatively unexplored. On the one hand, I draw attention to how neoliberal subjectivities are materialised in the disciplinary migrant labour regime in Shenzhen, China. The reconciliation of neoliberalism and autocratic power has resulted in the hyper-exploitation of migrant workers. On the other hand, I explore how lived enactment of Christian theo-ethics in the everyday praxis of care and justice for marginalised migrant workers can open an ethical space that reconstitutes the subjectivities normalised by autocratic and neoliberal agendas. I argue that theo-ethics not only negotiates but also co-constitutes neoliberal governance by either ameliorating neoliberal subjectivity or drawing on neoliberal logics per se; regardless, it creates possibilities of more hopeful spaces and hybrid subjectivities.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• theo-ethics
• migration
• Christianity
• subjectivity

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Peter Hopkins and Dr. Raksha Pande of Newcastle University for their guidance on this research. I am also grateful to the anonymous referees for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 National Bureau Statistics: http://www.stats.gov.cn/ztjc/ztfx/fxbg/201103/t20110310_16148.html.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this research came from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants: 41630635; 41601133).