Producing new farmers in Chinese rural live E-commerce: platformization, labor, and live E-commerce sellers in Huaiyang

Abstract

This research examines the complex labor practices of live e-commerce sellers in rural China. Migrant workers are being drawn back to their rural homes by the techno-entrepreneurial prospects of live e-commerce being used as part of the “new farmers” branding. We examine how livestreaming platforms transform the labor process of rural produce sellers, zooming in on the physical work and transactional labor involved in the process of platformization. Analysis of the “new farmer” online workflow reveals not only insights into the economic logics of platformized labor but also shows important continuities in terms of sustained economic inequality and the perpetuation of the urban–rural divide. Such analysis prompts questions regarding what political and economic interests scaffold the “new farmer” narrative in contemporary China. How does platform capitalism reinvent itself in rural China, more specifically, through the agentic practices of Chinese rural live e-commerce practitioners? We conclude that platformization reproduces, rather than subverts, the subjectivities of e-commerce sellers and the power structures in which they are cemented.

Keywords:

• E-commerce
• platformization
• platform labor
• rural China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The salary for delivery workers was 5 yuan (€0.68) per hour until December 2021. The salary for live streamers is basic income, 1760 yuan (€239.77), plus a percentage of the live streaming whole sales per month.

2 832 Platform (832 平台), launched by the Chinese government, is only available to sellers living in 832-identified poverty counties.

3 Hukou is a household registration system used in mainland China, identying individual′s status, like agricultural or non-agricultural status, connecting with inequal social welfare system, including education, health care and so on. There are many studies on this topic, for example: Cheng, T. & Selden, M. (1994). The origins and social consequences of China’s hukou system. The China Quarterly, 139, 644–668.

4 For example, here is a government report about this problem: http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/article/zt_dzswjnc/lanmufour/201704/20170402565911.shtml

5 The products should usually be sent to consumers within 24 hours, according to the requirements on the Douyin platform.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shichang Duan

Shichang Duan is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Journalism and Communication at Renmin University of China and a guest researcher working at the governing the digital society research platform of Utrecht University. His dissertation, based on a multi-sited ethnography in China, investigates platform labor in the live e-commerce industry. His research interests include platform studies, infrastructure studies, and labor studies.

Jian Lin

Jian Lin (PhD) is a Hundred-Talents-Program young professor in the College of Media and International Culture at Zhejiang University. He is the author of Wanghong as Social Media Entertainment in China (with David Craig and Stuart Cunningham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and The Chinese Creator Economies: Labour and the Bilateral Creative Workers (New York University Press, 2023).

José van Dijck

José van Dijck is a distinguished university professor in media and digital societies at Utrecht University (the Netherlands). She is the author of The Culture of Connectivity (2013) and The Platforms Society (2018). In 2021 she was awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest award for lifetime academic achievement, by the Netherlands Research Council (NWO).