Labor and Precariousness in Chinas Porcelain ... - Wiley Online Library

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Labor and Precariousness in China’s Porcelain Capital Maris Boyd Gillette, University of Missouri – St. Louis [email protected] Abstract In recent years, scholars have turned to Bourdieu’s model of precariousness to understand workers’ experiences under neoliberal capitalism. Here I look at Bourdieu’s ideas in relation to China’s most famous porcelain production site: the city of Jingdezhen. Bourdieu directs us toward the shared structural features of job insecurity, emphasizing the political consequences of workers’ alienation. Yet his universalist model cannot adequately explain how or why workers respond to precarious labor regimes as they do. In Jingdezhen, porcelain workers lost their state and collective sector jobs when the government mandated privatization and marketization. How they understood and responded to this experience was shaped by Jingdezhen’s particular history, including the ways that decades of government policies had promoted reliance on personal networks, had made labor activism the exclusive purview of the state, and had given many Chinese a negative view of mass mobilization. Keywords: precariousness, Bourdieu, China, porcelain industry, collective action

Introduction Pierre Bourdieu (1998:81–87), in a set of remarks made at a 1997 European conference on precariousness, identifies for his audience its characteristics. “Job insecurity is now everywhere,” he writes, across the private and public sectors, in industry, education, the media, and elsewhere (82). The effects of this insecurity are “more or less identical.” As workers lose secure jobs, familiar temporal structures disappear, and their relationship to the world deteriorates. The de-structuring of time and place causes (former) workers to lose the ability to project a stable future. Even those who retain their jobs are touched by precariousness, suffering pervasive anxiety and fear that they will become unemployed in an intensely competitive environment (82, 84). One outcome of this collective mentality is social alienation and the failure to organize politically (82–83). Bourdieu suggests that precariousness should be understood as a form of political domination rather than solely as a form of economic organization: the disabling of workers’ collective action Volume XXXV, Number 1

has striking benefits for those in power (85–86) (Figure 1). Here I would like to look at Bourdieu’s sketch of precariousness in relation to China’s most famous porcelain production site: the city of Jingdezhen. Jingdezhen’s large porcelain industry has existed for many centuries. Its size and the quality of its products relate directly to state support and consumption of porcelain. Official involvement culminated in the period from 1949 to the early 1990s, when the government incorporated Jingdezhen into the planned economy. Centralization brought workers high levels of job security and benefits. At the end of the 20th century, however, state-mandated marketization and privatization changed workers’ lives from secure to precarious. The government ordered banks to stop issuing credit to Jingdezhen’s state and collective industries in the mid-1990s, and the city’s 52 porcelain industrial sites collapsed, closing their doors, laying off workers, and declaring bankruptcy (see Jiangxi Gazetteer Editorial Committee 2005:23). Official records indicate that approximately 70,000– 90,000 workers lost their jobs (see Appendix 1). Jingdezhen became one of many Chinese ceramics industries, instead of the nation’s primary porcelain production site. Indeed, in 2004, the central government awarded the coveted title of “porcelain capital” to Chaozhou, in Guangdong. My research on Jingdezhen’s porcelain industry both affirms and challenges Bourdieu’s draft model of precariousness. Jingdezhen’s laid-off ceramics workers did experience de-structuring. How they spent their time and related to place transformed: old work routines were jettisoned, former production sites abandoned, and the place whose name had been synonymous with fine porcelain became inferior to other production sites. Some former workers became petty ceramics entrepreneurs, using their skills and networks to produce and/or sell porcelain or porcelain supplies in family enterprises. Others became laborers for hire, throwing, trimming, or decorating to order in such enterprises (Figure 1). Still other laid-off men and women left porcelain entirely, to run small-scale businesses such as motorcycle taxis, tourist agencies, gambling parlors, and dating services, or to take jobs in other sectors. Those who stayed in porcelain experienced intense competition, stress, and long work

© 2014 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.

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Anthropology of Work Review

Figure 1. Advertisement to hire 8–10 underglaze blue painters, to paint 100–300 pieces; two glazers who can also do miscellaneous work, and one person who can mix clay. The employer leaves his mobile number at the bottom. September 2004.

hours. Both entrepreneurs and workers felt pressure to be “active” and “flexible.” Finally, as Bourdieu predicts, Jingdezhen’s unemployed workers did not organize politically to combat their job insecurity. Other cases from China trace a similar trajectory. Several scholars have described the loss in status that China’s urban proletariat experienced as the state sector shrunk, with many workers undergoing personal and familial crises as they were laid off (Hanser 2008:157; see also Won 2004; Liu 2007). In rural settings, too, workers in handicraft industries once incorporated into the centralized economy lost their state enterprise and collective sector jobs as the government pursued market reforms (Cooper and Jiang 1998; Mueggler 2001; Eyferth 2009:160–162; Gowlland 2012). In the silk industry, privatization caused a global market collapse (Strange and Newton 2002). Pun Ngai, who studies garment and electronics factory workers in south China, has written extensively about China’s “precarious employment system” (Pun 2004:29, 35; Pun 2005; Pun and Chan 2012). The workers she studies are paid at piece rates, feel compelled to work overtime hours to keep their jobs, face pressures to work faster and faster, and find it difficult if not impossible to organize. In one case that Pun and Chan (2012) analyze, 14 workers at Foxconn committed suicide. Political mobilization apparently never occurred to them as an option. Volume XXXV, Number 1

Case studies from Argentina, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Trinidad, and elsewhere also show that neoliberal economic policies have created job insecurity for workers (e.g., Buyandelgeriyn 2007; Perelman 2007; Prentice 2008; Field 2009; Prentice 2012). However, workers’ responses to these circumstances are influenced by local histories, cultural ideologies, and social formations. For example, while globalization of the garment industry caused “desolation, disappointment, and industrial decline” in Trinidad, Prentice finds that Trinidadian garment workers responded by taking pride in drawing on their skills, networks, and personal ingenuity to make a living as entrepreneurs (Prentice 2008:55; 2012). Neoliberal imperatives of individual responsibility converged with local cultural values of personal ambition and a long history of occupational multiplicity in the region to give precariousness a particular cast. By contrast, the economic uncertainties produced by marketization and privatization in Mongolia led to a resurgence of shamanism, as Buryat Mongols sought to placate origin spirits whose neglect during the socialist period was understood to cause contemporary misfortune (Buyandelgeriyn 2007). Bourdieu’s description of precariousness is, by his own reckoning, universalist. He leaves out of his remarks any acknowledgment that the social processes and mentality he describes are shaped by local histories, social formations, and cultural ideologies. In contemporary Jingdezhen, and I suspect elsewhere in China, one reason that laid-off workers do not organize politically is because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) co-opted labor unions and mass protest. Porcelain producers were accustomed to workers’ organizations being organized and run by the party-state. When production privatized in the late 20th century, former workers did not see unionization or other forms of collective action as potential political tools: they associated labor unions and mass movements with the CCP and government. Instead, laid-off ceramics workers drew on kinship, native place affiliation, and former coworker networks to mitigate the worst effects of privatization. Local social formations and the cultural ideologies that reinforced them created a kind of security, or at least less insecurity. An examination of Jingdezhen’s history shows that a universal model of precariousness is inadequate to understanding porcelain workers’ actions and sentiments. Unlike other industries in China, porcelain production in Jingdezhen has had significant government intervention and support for most of its history since the 14th century. Ceramists rightly understand a completely private industry as anomalous and draw a parallel between their present circumstances and the last time when Jingdezhen


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Anthropology of Work Review lacked state regulation and consumption in the early 20th century. Below I trace a history of Jingdezhen’s porcelain industry. I examine workers’ views about its functioning under the planned and private economies and explore similarities and differences between early 20th and early 21st century production. I conclude by thinking about how government policies have shaped ceramists’ choices in the contemporary era of privatization.

China’s Porcelain Capital: Rise to Fame In 1369, immediately after establishing his government, the first emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) ordered officials to build an imperial factory in Jingdezhen, to produce porcelain exclusively for the court (Jiangxi Light Industry Bureau Ceramics Research Center 1959:27; Kerr and Wood 2004:187; Jiangxi Gazetteer Editorial Committee 2005:24). In the newly founded imperial kiln, fulltime hired labor replaced the part-time requisitioned workforce that had previously made porcelain for the emperor (Dillon 1976:34–35; Harrison-Hall 2001:24; Kerr and Wood 2004:209). This manufactory operated for more than five centuries, finally closing in 1910. Government construction of an imperial manufactory transformed Jingdezhen’s ceramics production, causing dramatic expansion, centralization, and an assembly-line (though nonmechanized) organization of production. Imperial demands for porcelain often surpassed what the government’s manufactory could supply, so officials turned to private commercial kilns to make up the shortfall (Dillon 1976:33, 45, 51–52; Harrison-Hall 2001:24–25; Kerr and Wood 2004:187–188, 197; Jiangxi Gazetteer Editorial Committee 2005:24). Full-time professional ceramists running family businesses came to dominate Jingdezhen, and the town became a regional center for labor migration (Chen 2004:32, 34). As the industry became increasingly specialized, ceramists created porcelain guilds based on occupation (such as throwing, trimming, making tools, painting, and building kilns). The guilds regulated who could enter the industry, produce particular ware types, and perform specific tasks (Dillon 1976:143–144; Kerr and Wood 2004:212). They also ensured standardization and quality control. Ties of kinship and native place buttressed Jingdezhen’s guilds: members tended to come from the same villages and kinship groups. For example, the Wei lineage first arrived in Jingdezhen during the Yuan dynasty. From the late 17th century through the 19th century, they monopolized the building of kilns (Kerr and Wood 2004:212–213). In the late Volume XXXV, Number 1

19th and 20th century, the Feng, Yu, Jiang, and Cao lineages from Duchang, in northern Jiangxi, owned most of Jingdezhen’s kilns, produced most of its open wares (bowls and plates), and sold most of its porcelain seconds (Fang 2002:145, 147, 171–172, 176). Migrants from Huizhou, in southern Anhui, dominated porcelain brokerages, migrants from Wuzhou and Fengcheng made most of Jingdezhen’s closed wares (vases and urns), migrants from Wuyuan controlled the production of pigments, and so on. These bonds of place and kinship were further strengthened by religious practice: each guild organized rituals around a patron deity (Fang 2002:189–202). Jingdezhen’s porcelain industry grew rapidly between the 15th and the 18th centuries. Increases in productive capacity related to demand from the government, but the imperial manufactory in turn stimulated private consumers. As one scholar puts it, the imperial manufactory made Jingdezhen a “famous brand name” (Chen 2004:301). During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Chinese elites bought luxury ceramics from Jingdezhen, while ordinary people bought its rough porcelain. Jingdezhen became the biggest supplier of porcelain to Southeast Asia (Kerr and Wood 2004:725). Japan and Korea also bought Jingdezhen porcelain in enormous quantities (Dillon 1976:38, 192–193). Europeans first encountered Jingdezhen porcelain in the late 15th century and quickly succumbed to “porcelain disease,” purchasing massive quantities through the early 18th century (Dillon 1976:39–40, 187–191; Finlay 1998:142, 168–173; Chen 2004:211; Kerr and Wood 2004:745). After Meissen, in Germany, finally succeeded in creating “white gold” in 1708, European consumption of Jingdezhen porcelain gradually diminished (Finlay 1998:174–175). The American market remained strong into the mid-19th century (Dillon 1976:194).

Nineteenth and Early 20th Century Jingdezhen From the mid-19th century through the mid20th century, Jingdezhen’s porcelain industry declined. The Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) devastated the city, and observers indicate porcelain manufacture never fully recovered (Scherzer 1900:191; Office of the National Review 1910:67; Wright 1920:21; Kerr and Wood 2004:188–189). The imperial court reduced its investment in porcelain, while increasing the taxes it extracted (Jiang 1936:163–165; Dillon 1976:55; Jiangxi Light Industry Bureau Ceramics Research Center 1959:268; Sheel 1989:62–63; Zhou 1989:141). As the Qing government lost sovereignty in the face of foreign armies,


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Anthropology of Work Review foreign companies gained the right to sell their porcelain in China and were taxed at lower rates than Jingdezhen ceramists (Jiang 1936:162; Feuerwerker 1980:19; Fang 2002:188; Chen 2004:212). The drop in state consumption, increase in extraction, and competition from mechanically produced foreign porcelain drove Jingdezhen into a serious depression, culminating in an almost total cessation of production during World War II. As the economy shrank, living and working conditions deteriorated and frequent, organized labor unrest disrupted production. Guilds instituted boycotts, where one sector of the porcelain industry refused to use the goods and services of another sector in an effort to control costs, supplies, and distribution (Dillon 1976:144). For example, kiln households fired infrequently, to raise the price of firing fees (Jiangxi Light Industry Bureau Ceramics Research Center 1959:275–279; Fang 2002:187). Fewer firings per month put pressure on the potting workshops, which either had to pay higher prices or decline orders. Many potters went out of business. This in turn damaged the saggar makers, who had fewer clients for saggars because fewer people were potting.1 Greenware carriers, the men who transported unfired porcelain from potting workshops to kilns, were another guild that organized to promote members’ short-term self-interest. Greenware carriers prevented passersby from bumping into them and ruining the unfired porcelain by shouting warnings. If a person ran into a carrier, guild rules required that the potter be compensated for the cost of finished porcelain, and the greenware carrier be taken out for a meal that included meat (Fang 2002:239). In the early 20th century, greenware carriers were known for intentionally running into passersby, to force them to pay for the damaged wares and compensate the carriers (Shyrock 1920:997; Franck 1925:377; Jiang 1936:188). Another example of guild mobilization is porcelain seconds’ sellers, known as zhoudian because their shops were located on the sandy banks (zhou) of the Chang River (Fang 2002:176). Zhoudian bought broken or damaged porcelain from potting workshops or decorators, repaired it, and resold it in their own stores. In 1910, a violent struggle broke out between seconds’ sellers and ceramic painters. The seconds’ sellers had started using stamps and decals to repair the decoration on damaged porcelain, instead of painting, as had previously been the case. Porcelain painters protested, fighting ensued, and parties from both sides died in the violence. The conflict forced the creation of a new guild rule allowing seconds’ sellers to use stamps and decals instead of brushwork for surface design but prohibiting other branches of the industry from doing so. Volume XXXV, Number 1

The low-level distrust that characterizes relations between members of different kinship groups and different villages in China exacerbated conflicts between guilds. For example, in 1926 people from Leping and Duchang fought for several months, causing many deaths (Jiang 1936:158; Fang 2002:240). Elderly residents of Jingdezhen also remember a violent armed conflict between Duchang and Wuzhou people (Fang 2002:240). Both of these conflicts stopped porcelain production for 2 or 3 months. Chart A tracks collective action in Jingdezhen between 1800 and 1950. During the early stages of government retrenchment, at the beginning of the 19th century, three incidents occurred: a struggle between owners and workers, a wrappers’ strike, and guild boycotts (Figure 2).2 Between 1900 and 1950, when the government had withdrawn all support from Jingdezhen, and taxed porcelain at high rates, 31 incidents occurred: 25 strikes, two riots, one protest, two armed conflicts, and guild boycotts. Contemporary observers, a historian, and an anthropologist working with elderly informants in the 1990s all write that there were more strikes in this period than the written record shows (Clennell 1905:328; Lenz 1920:405; Dillon 1976:178; Fang 2002:239–240).

Figure 2. Porcelain wrapped in straw for transit. Straw was the traditional packing material in Jingdezhen, and many enterprises still use it. The man pulls the wagon to its destination. September 2004.


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Anthropology of Work Review Chart A. Strikes, riots, boycotts, protests, and armed conflicts in Jingdezhen, 1800–19503 Year

Incident

1812

Violent struggle between porcelain workers and owners, 2000 + participants Wrappers strike Guild boycotts 20-day strike, ceramists burn down Catholic church and pharmacy 2 strikes: (a) open and closed ware potters (b) coarse ware potters Strike protesting inadequate compensation (low quality rice) Series of strikes Riot over new stamping methods, killings Riot over porcelain seconds sellers stamping rather than painting porcelain seconds Guild boycotts; worker protest over payment in copper rather than silver Wrappers strike 2 strikes: (a) kiln workers over delayed opening of kilns, (b) low wages 2 long, armed conflicts between industry sectors; enamellers’ strike for better wages Ongoing strikes Nine strikes for better wages, with CCP participation CCP organizes large strike, attacks on hoarding shop keepers, tax offices, tax boat Strike over government plans to establish new anti-bandit tax Strike for wage increases 2 strikes for wage increases: (a) wrappers, (b) kiln workers and potters All-industry strike for wage increase

1820 1823 1900 1901 1902 1904 1908 1910 1920 1923 1924 1926 1927 1928 1929 1932 1938 1946 1948

Between 1928 and 1933, a branch of the CCP helped organize strikes and protests (Jiangxi Light Industry Bureau Ceramics Research Center 1959:341–344; Dillon 1992:578–584). Shao Shiping, a leader from the Northeast Jiangxi Soviet Base, first came to Jingdezhen in 1927 to organize an armed underground organization, but its members were discovered and killed by the Nationalists. In 1928, a secret CCP organization and youth league were formed, and members organized a strike of overglaze enamellers for better wages. The 1,600 porcelain painters struck for more than 20 days and successfully obtained their demands. Fang Zhimin, a major CCP leader, arrived in Jingdezhen in 1929 and organized an all-industry strike, attacks on salt and rice merchants who were hoarding goods, and the destruction of a tax boat and office. One final strike occurred under CCP leadership in 1932. In 1933, the Nationalist government destroyed Jingdezhen’s CCP organization by executing six local leaders. In 1940, the Japanese bombed Jingdezhen (Jiangxi Gazetteer Editorial Committee 2005:25).The porcelain industry shrank still further and potters’ incomes dropped (Jiangxi Light Industry Bureau Volume XXXV, Number 1

Ceramics Research Center 1959:288; Dillon 1976:163–165). By 1948, Jingdezhen had only eight porcelain workshops open and 1,000 unemployed ceramists (Zhou 1989:173; Wang and Yin 1994:22). Rebuilding the Industry The People’s Liberation Army took control of Jingdezhen on April 29, 1949, and the CCP took steps to revive the porcelain industry. Almost immediately, the new local government placed an order for porcelain (Jiangxi Gazetteer Editorial Committee 2005:20). City officials opened the first nationalized porcelain factory, the Build the Nation Porcelain Factory, less than a year after Jingdezhen was “liberated” (Wang and Yin 1994:70). In May of 1950, the government opened a local branch of the Bank of China and began issuing low-interest loans to porcelain entrepreneurs (Wang and Yin 1994:32). Officials also set prices for porcelain and assisted in supplying potteries with raw materials and fuel (Wang and Yin 1994:33–35). By the second half of 1950, the government persuaded some local potters to form the first porcelain cooperatives, with the goal of increasing the size and scale of porcelain production sites and promoting stateregulated collective action (Wang and Yin 1994:60). Spoon-makers, decorative ware producers, round ware producers, porcelain wrappers, and transport and sales enterprises were the first to organize under the state’s guidance (Wang and Yin 1994:86). By 1951, city officials had completely destroyed Jingdezhen’s guilds (Wang and Yin 1994:109).4 They reorganized the labor union and set up a youth organization and a credit union (Wang and Yin 1994:69). With strong government encouragement, 98 percent of workers joined the union. During China’s first and second 5-year plans, Jingdezhen officials reorganized and mechanized the porcelain industry. The goal of the first 5-year plan was to build mechanized factories and change the firing fuel from wood to coal (Wang and Yin 1994:103–104). Officials began efforts to use coal for firing in 1953, although it took more than a decade before the entire industry switched (Jingdezhen City Records Compilation Committee 1989:49). Mechanization of potting began at the Build the Nation Porcelain Factory in 1954, with the rest of the industry soon following at the government’s insistence (Wang and Yin 1994:115). City officials focused on organizing Jingdezhen’s small workshops into large factories in the mid-1950s (Jingdezhen City Records Compilation Committee 1989:54). By 1956, all workshops belonged to 52 porcelain cooperatives. With official prodding, these became mutual-aid teams and joint public-private enterprises, forming a total of 19 joint public-private factories, 16 potting collectives, and 15 painting


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Anthropology of Work Review collectives (Jingdezhen City Records Compilation Committee 1989:45). At the start of the second 5-year plan, officials combined all these factories and cooperatives into nine nationalized factories, with the Build the Nation Porcelain Factory making 10 nationalized porcelain factories in Jingdezhen. After Jingdezhen was fully integrated into China’ planned economy in 1956, government officials managed every aspect of production and distribution, telling specific factories what wares to make, determining how many workers factories could employ, and assigning jobs to Jingdezhen’s residents (Jiangxi Gazetteer Editorial Committee 2005:21). The nationalized porcelain factories operated large collective factories, and the large collective factories ran small collective factories. In addition, the city government independently ran four porcelain factories. From the mid-1960s until 1995, the government managed 52 porcelain industrial sites, divided into 23 nationalized and 29 collective enterprises, that ran the gamut from mining china stone and kaolin, to mass-producing dinnerware, to making decals for surface decoration and more (Jiangxi Gazetteer Editorial Committee 2005:23). The only exception was during the height of the Cultural Revolution, when the central government instigated factional mobilization among groups of students and workers, temporarily shutting down production.5

work was stable.You had medical care, you had a pension, you had everything. You never had to worry about where your next meal was coming from. Back then, you were really proud to be a state enterprise worker. When you were looking for someone to get married to, or when you wanted to do anything, you were ahead of the game. Parents wanted their children to marry state enterprise porcelain workers.They knew that you were protected. The nation owned these factories. They wouldn’t go bankrupt (Figure 3). Former workers in the porcelain factories described their quality of life. “We didn’t have to work long hours,” a middle-aged woman who had worked on the production line in a big collective factory told me. “We worked a six- or seven-hour day.We very rarely had to work eight or nine hours.We got off by 3 p.m. in the afternoon.” A man in his fifties, who had hauled raw clay in a state enterprise porcelain factory, concurred.

A Worker’s Paradise During ethnographic field research in Jingdezhen between 2003 and 2010, I asked people who had worked in porcelain production under the planned economy to describe what it was like. Locals unfailingly discussed job security and benefits. A retired government official in his 80s recalled: During the planned economy, the workers’ wages were secure and the state provided education, medical care, retirement plans and pensions. The wages in the porcelain industry were higher than any other industry, higher by half. So during that time, everyone wanted to be in ceramics. My wife worked in a porcelain factory. I was head of the Labor Bureau, and I could have moved her into any job I wanted. But I thought that being in the porcelain industry was good. It had a future. I didn’t move her because working in the porcelain industry paid better and had better benefits.6 A woman in her late 30s, who had been a decorator at a state porcelain factory, agreed: At that time, everyone wanted to work for a state porcelain factory. If you worked for a state enterprise, you were protected. The government ran the factory. The salaries weren’t very high, but the Volume XXXV, Number 1

Figure 3. A view of an abandoned former state enterprise porcelain factory (the East is Red Factory) in September 2004. This factory has subsequently been torn down, although the smokestack remained in 2010.


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Anthropology of Work Review “Under Mao, people got paid whether they worked hard or not.There were some jobs that were considered especially dirty or hard work. The men who did those jobs worked very few hours each day. If you were hauling clay, for example, or if you loaded kilns for firing, you might only work two or three hours on any given day. But you still got your full monthly salary, and if you did this kind of work, your wages were good.” Another middle-aged woman who worked as a decorator stated, “I really liked working for a [state-owned] porcelain factory. It was very orderly (hen you guixu gan).The factory felt like your own home.We had good benefits. It was very stable, and very regular.You knew exactly what you were doing, exactly when you were working, exactly when you got off. And we got end-ofyear bonuses every year.” Residents’ memories of working in the porcelain factories under socialism were generally positive, but where a ceramist worked, as well as what he or she did, affected salaries and benefits. Locals said that the four city-run factories were the equivalent of the state enterprise factories in terms of working conditions and benefits. These work units provided free medical clinics, schools, showers, and barbershops to their employees, in addition to guaranteed cradle-to-grave employment and pensions. The large collectives, run by the state enterprises, had lower wages. They offered most of the same benefits as state enterprises, though they did not have their own schools. Workers employed in small collective factories had the lowest wages and least advantageous work environment. The small collectives offered jobs to (illegal) rural migrants and those with bad class labels.7 However, they did not provide the same constancy of employment or benefits. Ceramists who could do so worked their way up the hierarchy to find jobs in the big collectives, and then the city or state-owned porcelain factories. Layoffs Although in Jingdezhen, as elsewhere in China, the government began market reforms during the early 1980s, locals did not feel any negative effects until the late 1990s. As one middle-aged official told me, “The 1990s was when Jingdezhen really changed. That is when the [market] reforms really came home. The factories broke up (jieti) then, even though the reforms technically began in the 1980s.” Circumstances changed dramatically when the central government told the banks to stop issuing loans to state and collective enterprises circa 1995. Jingdezhen’s porcelain industry began a 3-year process of privatization that was devastating for workers. By 1998, the last state and collective porcelain factories had closed their doors. A government official in his late 60s described what happened this way: Volume XXXV, Number 1

The big factories had difficulty reorienting themselves to the market. They were used to the government telling them what to produce and handling distribution. No one knew what to make. So they went bankrupt, closed, shrunk, were split up and subcontracted to individuals. Most of the laid-off workers don’t have skills, and too many people have the same skills. Mostly they haven’t found work. Most porcelain production now is done by small-scale workshops that are able to respond better to the market. The smallscale workshops are more adaptable (Figure 4). When I first arrived in Jingdezhen during the summer of 2003, the last state-enterprise porcelain factory (and its subsidiary collective factories) had closed only 5 years previously. The city was full of laid-off workers, and “laid-off worker” (xiagang gongren) was a category that many used to describe themselves, even if they had opened their own small porcelain workshop or managed to find other work. Memories of being laid off were fresh in people’s minds. One woman who worked at the state porcelain factory that closed in 1998 recalled:

Figure 4. A porcelain painter working in underglaze blue pigment, for a private entrepreneur renting a workshop in the former big collective Sculpture Factory. July 2003.


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Anthropology of Work Review When the factories went under we weren’t warned at all. We went to work like normal and the doors were shut. They told us to go home, the factory was bankrupt. We got no compensation of any kind. After the factory went bankrupt I felt absolutely terrified (panhuang de). Even though there were other jobs with higher salaries, they weren’t stable.You felt like, ok, I have enough to eat today, but what about tomorrow? That’s what it was like. A porcelain entrepreneur in his mid-30s agreed. “It was really tough when I lost my job [in a state enterprise porcelain factory]. I was married with a six year-old child. Those were difficult times. But it was better for me than some; I was still young. I could get used to the idea that I had lost my job, and make a go of it in the market economy [as a porcelain entrepreneur]. Older people had a harder time adjusting.” Commented a former porcelain worker in his 50s, “The people of my generation have been through a lot. We went down to the countryside, we went through the Cultural Revolution, and then we lost our jobs. None of the government policies are working out well for us. Now we have to pay for our own health care and old age pensions out of our own pockets.” A woman in her early 50s told me, “Since I got laid off from the Jingdao Porcelain Factory, I worry about how to make a living, and I’m angry about how little I make. I do this work [as a temporary laborer] because I have to do something. When I got laid off, the new managers hired farmers, because they could pay them lower wages, and they would endure more hardship. All the former workers are in bad shape now. It used to be that farmers were doing the worst and workers were doing well, but now the farmers are doing better than the workers. Plenty of people are still unemployed.” A younger former worker confessed, “I feel like I’m out of date, superceded (taotaile). Jingdezhen has changed so much and I’m not ready for it. I thought I had an iron rice bowl, my job was supposed to last my whole life.8 There was no way to predict back then what we’d be now.” Several former ceramics workers and older Jingdezhen residents commented that Jingdezhen in the 2000s was like Jingdezhen in the 1920s. Porcelain production had “gone in a circle” (zou quanzi ), a ceramist in his 70s told me. “Most of the so-called modern porcelain factories today are still partly hand labor,” said a professor at the Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute, who moved to Jingdezhen in the 1960s. “They are not really modern. Privatization caused modernization to stall and retreat. Today’s private entrepreneurs rely mostly on manual labor. People in Jingdezhen have a handicraft consciousness. Jingdezhen is backward, a meeting place of bumpkins. I hear people talking about postmodernity – in Volume XXXV, Number 1

Jingdezhen, we never even achieved modernity!” One woman in her 80s commented: Jingdezhen is still feudal, still an old society [the term that the CCP used to describe China before the Communist Revolution]. Everything is private again. There are no more big porcelain factories, everything is small-scale workshops. That is just how it used to be in the old society, before the government rebuilt the industry. Most of the potters in Jingdezhen today used to be farmers. They couldn’t make money farming so they rented out their land to others and came to Jingdezhen to learn a skill. That is just like the old society too, except back then people who rented land out were called landlords. Now renting out your land is accepted, normal. The migrants work really hard to make a living, they work long hours and endure a lot of hardship.Working in porcelain is hard labor. Lots of other people in Jingdezhen are not willing to work as hard as these former farmers. Such remarks about Jingdezhen’s modernity or lack thereof, made by older Jingdezhen residents, related directly to CCP propaganda and policies to modernize China in the 20th century. When the party took power in 1949, China had experienced a century of decline and disintegration catalyzed by its confrontation with western nations and Japan. Mao’s “new China” would rapidly catch up and surpass these countries through centralized planning and massive industrialization. Jingdezhen, like other sites in China, would leave behind small-scale family businesses, handicraft production, and “feudal” social formations such as patriarchal lineages, absentee landlords, guilds, and the subordination of women to men. Intensive state management, mechanization, and mass production of porcelain in the second half of the 20th century were central to this agenda. The reasons why the late 19th century government decreased involvement in the porcelain industry and the reasons why the late 20th century government pulled back are not the same: in one case, massive state failure, in the other, redirection and consolidation.Yet there are undeniable similarities between the contemporary porcelain industry in Jingdezhen and that of the early 20th century. In both cases, the consequences of state withdrawal were a decrease in the porcelain industry’s size and scope, a shift from larger to smaller scale operations, declining technology, and worker unemployment. Socially and in terms of workers’ experiences, the two periods have much in common – with one major difference. Jingdezhen in the late 1990s and early 2000s had none of the collective action that characterized the early 20th century. Ceramists did not form or participate in


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Anthropology of Work Review guilds or labor organizations, they did not organize protests, strikes, or other demonstrations, and they did not engage in mass violence. To understand why, we must look again to Jingdezhen’s history and the meanings it carries for local residents. 2000s Production In the first decade of the 21st century, smallscale entrepreneurs produced the bulk of Jingdezhen’s porcelain. Most ran workshops in their homes, employing five or fewer employees, often on a temporary basis (Figure 5). Entrepreneurs typically specialized in one aspect of production and were laborers as well as owners. For example, Mr. Shao specialized in making unfinished fired “white wares” (bai tai) that he sold to porcelain painters, who then resold the pots to middlemen and/or consumers. Mr. Shao and his brother hand-pressed clay into molds, and a woman who had been the brother’s coworker in a collective porcelain factory made decorative pieces, such as clay rings, that adorned the wares. Shao paid the owner of a commercial kiln to fire his pots. One of Mr. Shao’s customers was a young migrant woman who painted ceramics with overglaze enamels. She had three employees, two of whom were her relatives and the third of whom was from her home village in northern Jiangxi. Ms. Jiang rented a small storefront with several other ceramic painters. She painted and sold her wares in the storefront. Most of her clients were small private porcelain distributors. Porcelain entrepreneurs like Shao and Jiang worked to order and hired extra workers on an ad hoc

Figure 5. An underglaze blue porcelain painter, working in a small family workshop. July 2003. Volume XXXV, Number 1

basis, paying them by the piece. Wages varied depending on what branch of production a person worked in. Potters and painters earned more, in the thousands of yuan per month, whereas decorators (stamping, decals) earned in the hundreds.9 Decorators reported that they spent their entire salary each month. All ceramists faced unemployment and no wages when business was slack. Work slowed during the heat of summer and cold of winter. For-hire ceramists were left to their own devices, whereas entrepreneurs sat idle (or played mahjong) while waiting for customers. Former state and collective porcelain factory workers, the children of these workers, and migrants from the countryside made the vast majority of Jingdezhen’s porcelain. Most of these ceramists had little education and no school-based training in production. However, Jingdezhen also had ceramics professors and graduate students at the Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute and the Light Industry Bureau Ceramics Research Center who had classroom training in ceramics. They made and sold art porcelain on the side, sometimes for prices that far exceeded their monthly salaries. These ceramists tended to have government honorifics for handicrafts and art.10 Working in Private Enterprises Former state and collective workers had strong views about the difference between working in the factories and working for private entrepreneurs. One laid-off state enterprise worker in his 40s commented, “The government doesn’t care whether the laid-off workers live or die. You have to depend on your own abilities and your connections, that’s it. It’s very stressful, very unstable. You have busy and slack seasons and you constantly worry about how to make it work.” Another former worker who had opened his own painting workshop said, “Work was easier when I worked for a [state enterprise] factory. As a private entrepreneur my hours are long. But the [state and collective] work units had a heavy burden, while private entrepreneurs don’t have any burden. The work units had to provide for workers: retirement pensions, health care, travel expenses. Private entrepreneurs have none of these expenses. We ask someone to come work for us, and when the job is done we let the person go.” A woman in her late 40s who had worked in a nationalized porcelain factory and now ran her own workshop stated, “Jingdezhen’s porcelain industry today is much worse than the nationalized industry was. This is especially true for those of us who were workers. All of us got laid off. A few people got rich with the market reforms, but a lot of people didn’t have the ability or the connections to get rich. These people are doing really badly; they are really pitiful. I was lucky, I had a skill: I can paint. So I have been able


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Anthropology of Work Review to make a living. Many other people are much worse off under the contemporary industry.” “Porcelain now is mostly for the young,” another laid-off worker told me. “The people who work in private workshops are all young, all migrants from the surrounding countryside in their teens and twenties.” A woman who had been a gilder in a large collective porcelain factory agreed. “Jingdezhen has lots of migrants from the countryside. The main people who are unemployed are those who didn’t have skills and worked in big factories, or who were managers there.” Ceramists also commented on declining incomes in the 2000s. “Jingdezhen’s art porcelain market has slowed down since the reforms,” a porcelain distributor told me. “Sales are slow all over the city. I used to make three million yuan annually selling porcelain between 1991 and 1999, and now I make a fraction of that. Back then, most of the porcelain factories were still open, and the economy was better.” A thrower who made 20,000 or 30,000 yuan per month in 2003 was only making 8,000 per month in 2005; trimmers and painters experienced similar decreases in income. Some blamed the migrant workers. “One of Jingdezhen’s problems is that so many farmers migrate to here to work in porcelain,” a middle-aged porcelain painter said. “If the government could persuade the farmers to stay in the countryside, then Jingdezhen’s porcelain industry might be able to recover.” “Porcelain production today is for the hardworking,” a potter told me. “People’s quality of life is lower than it used to be when the big factories were open. But I think it is better now, because the lazy people aren’t taken care of. In the big nationalized factories, there was a set amount of work to do and no one did anything extra. You got your salary each month. But today if you’re in porcelain you really work hard. Even the bosses work. In the big porcelain factories there was a big gap between manual laborers and management. Now the bosses work too.” A porcelain entrepreneur in his 20s, whose parents had worked in state and collective enterprises, agreed: The question now is whether you can keep up with the times and make what is wanted.You have to think about what sells and whether you are going to lose money on a product. You have to follow the market (Figure 6). Those of us who are private entrepreneurs [getihu], we come to work on Sundays. Basically we never take any days off. We work to make our lives better.We’re still young and we can tough it out a bit [duo pingbo yixia]. That’s how it is.You have to keep making progress and you can’t stop. Volume XXXV, Number 1

Figure 6. Unfired porcelain mugs drying before firing. This enterprise has since closed down. September 2004. Protection from Precariousness In the absence of state management and guaranteed benefits, porcelain workers used their personal relations and networks for assistance and security. Locals worked as much as they could with relatives, kin from their father’s and mother’s sides or through marriage.11 Every single workshop that I visited (at least 100) had relatives working together. This included siblings, parents, and married couples; cousins (including some very distant cousins), nieces, and nephews; and affines such as mother’s sister’s husband. For example, in one workshop that I visited frequently, a young potter had three relatives working for him. His wife painted with underglaze pigments. She also cooked lunch and dinner for him and his temporary workers when they were trying to finish an order. His matrilineal cousin was an apprentice. He practiced sketching and painting in underglaze pigments using books, shards, and other people’s wares as models, helped his cousin make clay and transport pots, and took turns sweeping the workshop with another cousin. This cousin was the owner’s father’s younger brother’s son. He was learning to pot. He also wedged clay, helped make clay, transported pots, and swept. If a ceramist did not have relatives to work with him or her, he or she used other personal connections to hire workers. A number of porcelain producers that I knew exclusively employed people from their home villages. Sometimes these covillagers were also distant relatives. Entrepreneurs also hired people with whom they had worked in someone else’s workshop or in a factory.12 For example, I knew a group of ceramists who made antique replicas and used their shared former employment in a porcelain factory as a network for business contacts. Some of these men and


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Anthropology of Work Review women had started their own production enterprises, whereas others were employees for private entrepreneurs. They regularly called upon each other for help. For example, when one man needed an underglaze blue painter, he asked a former coworker to paint for him. When a young painter wanted to hire a handpresser, she asked a former coworker to do the job. Because this man was running his own enterprise, he refused, but he introduced her to a former apprentice of his who went to work for the woman. Ceramists also called on their former coworker networks for help transporting large pieces, buying train tickets for travel to an exhibition, and selling wares. Producers cultivated these networks because they regarded them as more trustworthy than hiring someone with whom they did not have a personal connection. The general sentiment was that ceramists whom you did not know were your competitors, out to take advantage of you in any way that they could (see Gillette 2010). By contrast, family, people from one’s native place, and former coworkers shared history and had mutual obligations. They engaged in reciprocal gift-giving, assistance, and attendance at life-cycle events such as marriages, engagements, children’s 100-day celebrations, or a son or daughter’s high school graduation. As one young decorator put it, “they are like part of your body.” Kin, people from one’s native place, and former coworkers were almost extensions of the self. After living in Jingdezhen for several months, I asked one young entrepreneur who I knew well why it was that local ceramists did not collaborate on wages and prices.Why did not all the throwers form a union, for example, and agitate for better working conditions? He laughed at me in response. “A union [gonghui]? You’ve got to be kidding. The unions were totally corrupt. The government ran them, and everyone had to join. It was just another way for officials to get what they wanted. No one around here would ever want to join a union.” Evidence from elsewhere suggests many Chinese citizens share this perspective. Workers perceive labor unions as part of the government, and labor unions see themselves as party, government, and management organizations (Chan 2004; Pun 2005; Chen 2007, 2009). As Chen explains, under Mao workers had significant entitlements, but they did not have collective rights beyond what the state mandated (Chen 2007).There were no independent unions, and workers had no ability to bargain. During the reform period, workers have lost their entitlements, and they still cannot legally organize or bargain collectively. The government runs the trade unions that do exist, and union officials are government appointees (Chan 2004; see also Pun 2005; He and Xie 2012). Mainly unions organize entertainment and outings (Pun 2005:112). Volume XXXV, Number 1

Locals had very negative memories and views of collective action, regardless of age. Older residents remembered armed fighting on the streets of Jingdezhen during the Cultural Revolution. Some described a sense of betrayal: they had participated in political movements, but what had it gotten them? Everything they had worked for had been reversed. Younger residents wondered how it could be that their parents participated in mass action. “The whole society was crazy then [under Mao],” said a young potter in his twenties. “I can’t believe what my parents did back then. I can’t understand how anyone would behave how they did. What a waste, what a terrible waste.” Conclusion Laid-off workers in Jingdezhen understand their current situation as a “return” to the early 20th century form of production. Yet early 20th century Jingdezhen saw significant collective action and political mobilization, whereas early 21st century Jingdezhen has none. When the state withdrew its support of porcelain production and Jingdezhen’s economy shrank between 1850 and 1950, guilds, with their multifaceted ties of native place, kinship, occupation, and popular religious practice, and grassroots organizing by a branch of the CCP (which was not then the government), shaped how ceramists reacted. When the state again withdrew support and the porcelain market again shrank in the late 1990s and 2000s, ceramists identified the government with mass movements and collective organization and had negative memories of political mobilization. Trade unions were arms of the state, and popular organizations required government permission to exist legally. Personalized social networks, which had become a key form of nonstate social organization under Mao (see Yan 1996;Yang 1994), were only strengthened by China’s market reforms. The government promoted family-based private entrepreneurship and allowed the state and collective sectors to go under while retaining control over local organizations. Twenty-first century Jingdezhen ceramists’ unwillingness to engage in collective political action can only be understood in light of this history. In his sketch of precariousness, Bourdieu directs us toward shared elements of worker experience under neoliberal capitalism and insists that we recognize the political implications of economic reordering. Without a doubt, Bourdieu identifies important structural features of precariousness that can assist scholars and others who seek to understand the implications of our current global economic regime. At the same time, his universalist approach renders invisible the contextual factors that shape workers’ specific responses to the economy. Nothing


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Anthropology of Work Review in Bourdieu’s model can account for the differences in how workers in Trinidad, Mongolia, Argentina, and China respond to neoliberalism. This omission is particularly significant when we attend to the politics of precariousness. Jingdezhen’s history makes it clear that state withdrawal and economic reordering can, in fact, lead to collective mobilization. In the case of contemporary Jingdezhen, the fact that it did not derives from the specific historical relationship between the CCP and labor activism, and a particular government policy toward nonstate social formations. A superficial view of porcelain workers’ failure to organize as the inevitable consequence of privatization and deregulation fundamentally misrepresents what was and is happening in Jingdezhen. Job insecurity may indeed be everywhere, but if we want to know why people respond as they do, we need to look closely at local social formations, cultural ideologies, and specific historical trajectories. Author’s Note Funding for this project came from the American Council of Learned Societies (American Research on the Humanities in China), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Smithsonian Institution, and Haverford College. I would like to thank Kathleen Millar for organizing a panel on precarious labor for the American Anthropological Association meetings in November 2012, where I had the opportunity to present this work, and all the panelists for their papers and discussion. I thank Stevan Harrell, Dong Yue, and participants in the China Colloquium at the University of Washington in March 2013 for a lively discussion of the parallels and differences between late 19th and late 20th century Jingdezhen. I would like to thank Sarah Lyon and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

5 Scholars generally agree that Mao Zedong instigated the Cultural Revolution to assert and consolidate his power as China’s supreme leader, although they differ on the extent to which he was also motivated by genuine concerns about potential rapprochement with capitalist economies. See Benton and Lin 2009 for a range of scholarly takes on Mao Zedong. 6 His and some of the other ceramists’ testimony can be heard in my film Broken Pots Broken Dreams (2009). 7 During the Maoist period, citizens with rural residence permits (hukou) could not legally work or live the city. 8 The Chinese idiom “iron rice bowl” refers to the system of guaranteed lifetime employment and benefits in state enterprises under the planned economy. In post-Mao China, since the dismantling of the state enterprise system, citizens sometimes refer to civil servant jobs as “iron rice bowls,” or even “gold rice bowls.” Significant, of course, is the central role played by rice in the Chinese diet, particularly in south China, where Jingdezhen is located. A common greeting in both north and south China is “have you eaten rice yet?” 9 In 2003, the exchange rate for yuan to dollars was about 8:1. So a thrower earning 8,000 yuan per month made about $1,000 USD. A decorator earning 200 yuan per month made $25 USD. In 2010, the exchange rate had dropped to about 7:1. 10 Cooper provides a useful description of such honorifics among wood carvers in Dongyang, Zhejiang. See Cooper and Jiang 1998:158–160. 11 Eyferth finds a similar practice among papermakers in Jiajiang, Sichuan (2009). 12 Gowlland finds that ceramists in Yixing make extensive use of their former co-workers from the collective factory. He argues strongly for the ongoing significance of social ties formed in the collective factory (2012).

References Benton, Gregor, and Lin Chun, eds. 2009. Was Mao Really a Monster? Oxford: Routledge Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. Acts of Resistance against the Tyranny of the Market. New York: The New Press.

1 Jingdezhen’s kilns fired pine logs or bramble. Ceramists placed unfired porcelain in protective containers (saggars) to protect them from open flame, smoke, ash, or other kiln debris. 2 Wrappers prepared porcelain for transport, typically by packing it in straw. 3 Sources for Chart A are: Jiangxi Light Industry Bureau Ceramics Research Center 1959:239, 269, 339–40, 342–343, 345–346; Fang 2002:176, 220–221, 239, 241; Dillon 1976:52, 161–162; Dillon 1992:575–582; Jiang 1936:158, 189, 164; Wright 1920:193–194; Franck 1925:364; Zhou 1989:160, 166–167, 171–173.

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4 Unfortunately my sources provide no detail on how this was accomplished.

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———. 1992. Fang Zhimin, Jingdezhen, and the Northeast Jiangxi Soviet: Tradition, Revolution, and Civil War in a Pottery Town. Modern Asian Studies 26(3):569–589.

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Eyferth, Jacob. 2009. Eating Rice from Bamboo Roots: The Social History of a Community of Handicraft Papermakes in Rural Sichuan, 1920– 2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fang, Lili. 2002. [Jingdezhen’s Folk Potteries]. Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe. Feuerwerker, Albert. 1980. Economic Trends in the Late Ch’ing Empire, 1870–1911. Cambridge History of China: Late Ch’ing. volume 11, part 2, ed. John K. Fairbank and Kwang-Ching Liu. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Field, Les. 2009. Four Kinds of Authenticity? Regarding Nicaraguan Pottery in Scandinavian Museums, 2006-08. American Ethnologist 36(3):507–520. Finlay, Robert. 1998. The Pilgrim Art: The Culture of Porcelain in World History. Journal of World History 9(2):141–187.

Jiangxi Gazetteer Editorial Committee, ed. 2005. [A Record of the Ceramics Industry in Jiangxi Province]. Jiangxi: Jiangxi Province Gazetter Publishing. Jiangxi Light Industry Bureau Ceramics Research Center. 1959. [A Draft History of Jingdezhen Ceramics]. Beijing: Sanlian Publishers. Jingdezhen City Gazetteer Editorial Group. 1994. Jingdezhen Yearbook 1994. Beijing: Central Party Publisher. ———. 1998. Jingdezhen Yearbook 1998. Beijing: Central Party Publisher. Jingdezhen City Records Compilation Committee, ed. 1989. [Brief Records of Jingdezhen City]. Shanghai: Chinese Dictionary Publishers. Jingdezhen City Statistical Bureau, ed. 1986. Jingdezhen Statistical Yearbook 1986. Jiangxi: Nationalized JiangxiYichun Information Publishing Factory.

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Anthropology of Work Review Yan, Yunxiang. 1996. The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Appendix 1 Jingdezhen Employment Figures From Official Sources Year 1978 1980 1985 1986 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Total Population

1,328,800 1,338,600 1,357,800 1,365,900

Urban Population

Private Ent. Empl.

524,222 537,241 569,672 580,694

400 6,800 11,700

444,400 449,000 371,700 464,300

1,393,800 1,404,900 1,423,000 1,422,300 1,437,800 1,456,100 1,506,400

18,400 43,200

Total Workers (WU)

State Ent. Workers

Coll. & Other Workers

180,400 191,400 243,600

141,100 147,600 169,300

39,300 43,800 74,300

254,700

184,500 190,800 190,100 184,000 188,700 183,500

72,900 72,000 74,600 70,900 65,600 67,500

254,900 254,300 251,400 251,100 173,500 168,300 159,500 152,700 138,800

126,400 124,600

47,100 43,700

Employed Population

712,300 752,300 749,300 777,800 780,900 783,300 785,000

Headings: total population, urban population, private enterprise employees, total workers (work units), state enterprise workers, collective & other workers, employed population. Figures in plain text are from the 1986 Statistical Yearbook. Figures in italics are from 1999 Statistical Yearbook. Figures in bold are from annual yearbooks 1991–1993. Figures in bold and italics come from adding annual yearbook figures for state and collective workers (excluding village workers). Where official documents gave no figures, cells are blank.

DOI:10.1111/awr.12028



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