In the Chinese capitalist factory, peasant bodies are transformed into industrial bodies through various techniques. Ngai states that it took just one process to train the workers as specialists and suggests that the opportunity to gain skill in more than one work process required the workers to have worked on the line for more than a year. She also mentions that most workers were not aware of the features of the product they were working on, and also that they were not familiar with the English expressions that appeared on the instructions. They simply followed the instructions by understanding the layout and the directions pointed by the arrows on the keys. She states that the authority utilized the principle of autonomy to organize the bodily force in order to extract maximum work. She adds that the monotonous and repetitive nature of the work allowed one to get easily accustomed to the work and contribute to the rhythm of production. She points that the workers were also kept under constant surveillance with omnipresent video cameras (Pun, pp. 78 – 108).
In the capitalist industry of China, different kinds of identities complicated the process of disciplining and created politics among the workers. Ngai states that during her time of working in the factory, her identity was eventually diluted and mage ambiguous as she struggled to identify herself as a factory worker who was separate from the civilized world. She points that the authority instilled a sense of fear among the workers by stating that such process of homogenization resembles the process of displacement and exclusion. It results in building anxiety and fear among the workers which further gives them a purpose to integrate themselves into the hegemonic construct. Another kind of identity that Ngai mentions is the rural and urban divide. She notes that over three decades, the Chinese socialist economy created a wide gap between rural and urban environments which also resulted in a division between rural peasants and urban workers. She also states that the Meteor management controlled workers by utilizing the kinships and ethnic relations to increase efficiency. These kinships and ethnic differences were exaggerated or even invented in order to divide, manipulate and rank the workforce (Pun, pp. 112 – 122).
Works Cited
Pun, Ngai. Made in China: women factory workers in a global workplace. Durham: Duke U Press, 2005. Print.
