Abstract
ABSTRACT This article explores how specific kinds of aesthetic capital enable urban-to-urban migrant workers to secure social mobility in the informal labour market of China’s leisure industry. Focusing on aesthetic capital accumulation and transference, it investigates how gym coaches, hip-hop dancers, and performers trade on their bodily assets and taste and seize opportunities to maximise capital when the fitness and leisure market creates occupational niches in metropolitan cities. It draws on ethnographic data from urban migrant coaches in the leisure industry in eastern and western cities in China. The findings reveal the dynamics of personal attributes, work strategies, and the increasing importance of aesthetic capital in the precarious economy. The findings enhance our understanding of how modern capitalism sustains interest in aesthetic and affective cycles.
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