The ‘Inferior’ Talk Back: Suzhi (Human Quality), Social Mobility, and E-Commerce Economy in China

Abstract

ABSTRACTRural migrants in Chinese cities are often stigmatized as ‘low-suzhi’ population and marginalized in urban social hierarchy. Existing scholarship has demonstrated how urbanities used suzhi discourse to justify their exploitation of migrants while maintaining class distinctions, and how migrants embraced urban lifestyles to improve their suzhi. Yet, this literature rarely addresses resistance of the ‘inferior’. By looking at the social interactions between migrant entrepreneurs and local residents in a city of southeastern China, this study shows that the emerging e-commerce economy has enabled many rural migrants to acquire financial, social, and cultural capital, which empower them to speak for themselves. Their rising wealth and self-representation as ‘high-suzhi’ entrepreneurs has reshaped their identity in the urban business world.