Paper short abstract:

How is uncertainty routinized or normalized, shaping the subjectivity of young labourers and their imagination of time, work and the good life? This article discuss these issues through an ethnographic study on young migrant workers in Shenzhen.

Paper long abstract:

This research aims at re-examining the social and class implications of uncertainty. How is uncertainty routinized or normalized, shaping the subjectivity of young labourers and their imagination of time, work and the good life? I attempt to discuss these issues through an ethnographic study on workers who had migrated from rural villages to Shenzhen in an electronic factory.

This article goes beyond the appearance of 'cruel optimism' to argue that uncertainties might be a crucial stimulus to the agency of peasant workers. Those staying and moving up the ranks gradually learned and developed skills, knowledge and strategies to grasp the future in a 'zone of indeterminacy'. No matter how irrational their scenario might be, it does generate actions, practices and pin down their economic decisions. It shed light on 'imagination is social practice'. Without understanding workers' imagination, we can't understand their economic decisions and class formations.