WeChat, we sell, we feel: Chinese women’s emotional petit capitalism

Abstract

Through multi-situated and virtual ethnography, this article investigates the link between mobilities, subalternity, emotions and digital economies. Drawing on the case study of Chinese migrant women’s digital labour and e-commerce in Taiwan, it elucidates the social and emotional construction of translocal virtual markets, which connect online and offline the different temporalities, spatialities and emotions of women’s mobilities. In Taiwan, Chinese migrants contest a local condition of social, economic and cultural subalternity by exploring physical and digital, material and emotional markets. Setting sail through local consumption and translocal logistics, through the online application WeChat an emotional petit capitalism is socially and emotionally produced within women’s daily microcosmos of experiences and practices.

Shall WeChat? Switching between online and offline ethnography

“…The proximate inspiration for this reflection is my wish to expand on methodological questions from my fieldwork experience and the empirical data I could collect while conducting ethnographic work with Chinese migrant women in Taiwan between 2015 and 2018. By that time, I was investigating the biographical and migratory experiences of young Chinese migrant women (aged between 21 and 34) who move from the rural provinces of Sichuan, Guanxi, Henan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Anhui to the large industrialised coastal cities of Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces in China to work in the local textile and electronic factories, and who later re-migrate to Taiwan through marriage with a Taiwanese national (Zani, 2018(Zani, , 2020, which is the necessary legal condition to access to and settle down in Taiwan. In the context of a political standoff between China and Taiwan, because of their Chinese origin, as well as their lack of educational and professional credentials, women face different social, familial, and professional inequalities in Taiwan.…”

“…Detached from a fixed or geographically bounded place (Candea, 2009), groups are nonetheless constructed in situ by actors according to various opportunities and constraints. The social and affectional bonds they developed converged into online 'emotional communities' (Zani, 2020) based on similar origins, migratory paths and marital routes as well as shared experiences of exclusion and vulnerability. Yet, such online communities are not placeless, nor detached from the situations of social contempt and endured economic marginalisation in the labour market in Taiwan.…”

“…The corporeally distant dimension of the WeChat groups seemed to generate virtual closeness as a new 'situational property' (Goffman, 1982). The interactive roles of friend, adviser, and supporter performed by women seemed to transcend the bodily remote positioning to produce novel social relations and affectional ties within 'online emotional communities' (Zani, 2020). Chatting together, asking for help and organising offline meetings were the tacit and banal situations of everyday WeChat performance.…”

“…I still remember that a few days before I left, Fujin expressed her worries to me: if the goods could not arrive to Taiwan, she would face financial difficulties. From France, between July 2017 and January 2018, I could follow the evolution of her commerce and, from abroad, I could still collect important information regarding the novel strategiestransgression of commercial regulations and of borders (Zani, 2020) which helped me to improve my analysis, integrating 'real time' pieces of information. At the same time, despite our spatial distance, when in March 2018 I unexpectedly travelled from China to Taiwan and remained in Taipei, the reunions with the women I had left a year before were smooth and spontaneous.…”

Examining Cultural and Technological Change: A Study of Cultural Affordances on WeChat

“…To elaborate, prior study demonstrates the factors that affect WeChat users' motivations and practices include: relax and stress relief [19,42,71], influences of friends [40], entertainment [20,35,48], information [20,35], sociality [35,44,48,74], trust [35], social support [19,49,64], social values [71], fashion [48], age [20,69], gender [20,69], and social and economic status [44,70]. In terms of users' behaviors on WeChat, prior studies show that female users spend more time on WeChat, yet they are less enthusiastic about interpersonal communication on WeChat [48].…”