- Convenors:
-
Xiaolin Li
(University of Antwerp)
Haichao Wang (University College London)
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- Discussant:
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Daniel Miller
(University College London (UCL))
- Formats:
- Panel
Short Abstract
This panel explores how remote work, gender, and sociality are mutually shaped. Building on anthropological debates on labour and value, we propose gender and sociality “at work” and “as work” to examine how digitally mediated remote work intersects with broader processes of polarisation in society.
Long Abstract
Anthropological studies of work and social life have long explored how gendered and domestic relations shape labour and value, traditionally assuming a domestic/work divide (Ortiz, 1994). Yet the rise of digital technologies and work at home, especially since COVID-19, has created radical change that may or may not have resulted in fundamental challenges to conventional ideas of the relationship between gender, sociality, and work (Cangià, 2024; Costa, 2024). For instance, women balancing remote work and domestic responsibilities, navigate overlapping ties of care, collaboration, and control within households, often negotiating gendered expectations alongside demands for productivity and professional ethics. The reconfiguration of time–space concepts at work, the remaking of home and community, and the rise of “third spaces” such as co-working hubs have jointly remapped gender and social relations.
In this panel, we propose to think of gender and social relations at work and as work as a coupled concept that captures the variety of digitally mediated remote work and work–life situations today. This considers both traditional, industry-based forms of remote work involving employees and more gender-oriented or relation-focused forms of labour—from care work and micro-entrepreneurship to live-streaming, influencer economies, and intimate services—where gender and relationships themselves become sources of livelihood. This, inspired by Marxist-feminist theories, moves from conventional discussion of production in a material sense to social reproduction, revealing that gender and sociality itself have become a key site of value creation and (in)equality (Vishmidt and Sutherland, 2020).
By juxtaposing these two concepts of as work and at work, the panel explores how the interaction between work, gender, and sociality mirrors broader processes of polarisation in contemporary life. We ask how new configurations of connection and productivity not only generate both empowerment and inclusion, but also new inequalities, differentiations, and divisions in the everyday lives of contemporary remote workers.
Accepted papers
Session 1Paper short abstract
Based on fieldwork among «emprendedoras», this paper explores how young Cuban women engaged in remote self-employment reconfigure work, gender relations, and sociality through digitally mediated entrepreneurial practices in late-socialist Cuba.
Paper long abstract
Since 2020, Cuba has experienced a deep economic crisis alongside significant policy reforms that expanded legal self-employment and small-scale entrepreneurship. At the same time, the rapid diffusion of mobile internet and more affordable data plans have extended digital connectivity to broader segments of the population. These shifts have made digitally coordinated, home-based entrepreneurial work increasingly widespread, reshaping both livelihoods and everyday social relations.
Women’s entrepreneurial labour often blurs conventional divisions between «casa» and «calle», production and reproduction, and social relations function as a crucial form of capital in a context marked by scarcity and informality. For instance, dense female networks («estar enREDada», as an emic pun) enable access to clients, materials, and mutual support among artisans. At times, practical help even turns into more intimate connections, such as friendships, the sharing of family events, and support beyond the «emprendimiento». Sociality thus emerges not only as something that takes place at work, but as work – integral to the reproduction of economic activity.
The paper highlights how these arrangements contribute to overcoming a simplistic understanding of dynamics related to gender, labour and social ties, beyond a polarized or deterministic standpoint. On the one hand, digital micro-entrepreneurship can reinforce gender inequalities, intensifying reproductive labour, low-profile strategies, and self-exploitation under conditions of informality and crisis. On the other hand, it can generate new forms of economic agency, access to income, expanded social connections, and partial renegotiation of household roles, including the involvement of other family members in both business activities and domestic tasks.
Paper short abstract
This paper explores how remote work reshapes parents’ everyday experiences of the work–family interface in urban China. It shows that while both mothers and fathers face expanded work demands, mothers are disproportionately more likely to assume intensified domestic responsibilities.
Paper long abstract
While the growth of remote work has accelerated since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there remains limited understanding of how it shapes parents’ experiences of work–family conflict (WFC) in China. Existing research in Western contexts offers mixed findings on gendered differences in the impacts of home-based remote work on WFC between mothers and fathers. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 34 parents across 20 dual-earner households in urban China, this paper explores how home-based remote work reshapes experiences of WFC in everyday life among parents with young children. The findings reveal that home-based remote work often intensifies tensions between paid work and family responsibilities among these parents, in gendered ways.
The analysis shows that both mothers and fathers experience expanded work roles under an “always-on” digital work culture, yet they internalise and negotiate these demands differently. Fathers tend to frame home-based remote work as a voluntary extension of work devotion, reaffirming ideal worker identities. In contrast, mothers more often report difficulties in “disconnecting” from work, alongside intensified expectations of intensive mothering, leading to constant multitasking and self-exploitation. These patterns are further shaped by gendered configurations of spousal and grandparental support, which often protect fathers’ work boundaries while reinforcing mothers’ domestic responsibilities.
This paper contributes to debates on the social life of remote work by showing how everyday negotiations of work and care in the context of remote work are gendered, reproducing gender inequality within families in contemporary China.
Paper short abstract
This paper examines how remote work reshapes masculinity and gendered social relations among male workers in urban China. It explores how working from home and third spaces unsettles established work–home divisions, and how male workers negotiate domestic space, intimacy, and everyday sociality.
Paper long abstract
This paper is part of the ERC project Remote Work and Social Change. Building on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among male remote workers in Shanghai, a cosmopolis where skilled and well-educated remote knowledge workers are employed by both foreign enterprises and local firms, or are self-employed, this paper examines how remote work reshapes everyday practices of manhood and gendered social relations.
In the Chinese context, dominant models of masculinity have long been associated with men’s orientation toward the public sphere of work and relative separation from domestic life, often articulated through the gendered distinction between zhu wai (men positioned in the “outside” world of work) and zhu nei (women as primary carers of household and family life) (McDougall and Hansson, 2002). Yet remote work has blurred and reworked this conventional division, as male workers no longer have a fixed office in a professional setting, and instead work primarily from home and/or third spaces such as cafés and coworking venues.
This paper draws on the ethnography of male remote workers’ relationships with partners, family members, friends, and peers, design and use of home offices, engagement with domestic labour and care responsibilities, and the strategic use of cafés and other third spaces. It examines how masculinity is negotiated amid blurred gendered divisions between work and domestic life, and how such negotiations give rise to new expectations and norms of manhood among remote knowledge workers in urban China.
Paper short abstract
This paper explores how Hui Muslim translators negotiate gender, professional identity, and social reproduction and suggests that translation work illuminates broader processes of polarisation and differentiation, revealing how gendered sociality itself becomes a site of labour and value creation.
Paper long abstract
Within the context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, intensified mobility between Chinese businesses, tourists, and the Arab Gulf has expanded the demand for Chinese-Arabic translation work. This paper examines the gendered social life of Chinese–Arabic translation through the experiences of Hui Muslim translators, whose labour is shaped by intersecting expectations around gender, sociality, and value creation.
While both men and women participate, gendered norms within Hui communities continue to frame translation as intellectual work at and as social relations. Men are commonly positioned as breadwinners, whereas women’s participation is often perceived as transgressing and “masculinised” due to their public visibility and income-generating character. In contrast, within wider Chinese society, Chinese–Arabic translation is frequently constructed as a service-oriented and “feminised” form of labour, associated with assistance and support rather than professional expertise.
This divergence is shaped by two structural conditions. First, Chinese–Arabic translation is largely organised as project-based, precarious, and digitally mediated labour, blurring boundaries between home, mobility, and work. Second, many translators acquire Arabic through informal Islamic education, reflecting histories of ethnic and religious marginalisation and contributing to the devaluation of their skills within national labour hierarchies.
Drawing on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Dubai, UAE, this paper explores how Hui Muslim translators negotiate gender, professional identity, and social reproduction under conditions of mobility. It argues that translation work illuminates broader processes of polarisation, inequality, and differentiation, revealing how gendered sociality itself becomes a site of labour and value in contemporary remote work arrangements.
Paper short abstract
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with Kurdish influencers in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district, this paper explores how gendered perceptions and expectations around everyday practices shape influencers’ content creation processes, private lives, and relations in the home and in public spaces.
Paper long abstract
This paper is developed within the framework of the ERC-funded ReWorkChange research project. Esenyurt is the largest district in Istanbul. Its population is young, with a high proportion of Kurdish residents, and consists largely of low-and middle-income families (Birarada, 2022). Many of them work as influencers on TikTok or Instagram. Their digital content creation process takes place within everyday places, including the home and public spaces, largely drawing on their private lives and their social networks. In this sense, content production is closely tied to the organization of daily life rather than being separated from it(Costa et al., 2023), thus reshaping how everyday life is organized(Miller et al., 2016). However, these shifts are not experienced uniformly in terms of gendered perceptions and expectations: while male influencers are often supported by their social networks, women are under greater surveillance and harsher criticism as they are expected to behave in gendered ways, or, e.g., to focus on housework(Thornham,2019).
The paper argues that the everyday spaces and social relations involved in digital content creation are not merely settings for digital labour, but also become part of the labour itself. Gendered expectations and perceptions play an active role in shaping how digital labour is carried out and how influencers manage their private lives. By foregrounding the dynamics between influencers’ digitally mediated content creation processes, gender, everyday spaces, and social relations, this paper contributes to the discussion on how gender and sociality at work and as work intersect with broader processes of polarisation in society.