Hukuo and Suzhi as Chinese Technologies of Governing Citizenship and Internal Migration in China

Zhang, Chenchen

Hukuo and Suzhi as Chinese Technologies of Governing Citizenship and Internal Migration in China

dc.contributor.author	Zhang, Chenchen
dc.date.accessioned	2022-06-13T14:24:11Z
dc.date.available	2022-06-13T14:24:11Z
dc.date.issued	2021-03-08
dc.description	Video of full lecture with presentation slides edited into the video.	en_US
dc.description.abstract	Chenchen Zhang, Lecturer in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queens University, Belfast - this talk looks at the genealogy and contemporary configuration of two key concepts that are central to governing the “extent” and “content” of citizenship in China: hukou and suzhi. Whereas hukou, or the household registration system, functions as a formal meso-level citizenship that distributes rights and regulates internal migration, the concept of suzhi, loosely translated as quality, brings together various discourses about what a desirable citizen subject should look like. I conceptualize the two as technologies of citizenship, which are inherently interconnected to one another as the hukou policy that governs internal migration employs the language of suzhi to justify the regime of differentiated citizenship, rights and mobility. After presenting the historical evolvement of each concept in the Chinese political system, I will focus on the latest reforms of the household registration system and the role of suzhi in the discourse of hukou reforms, urban governance, and rural-to-urban migration. It is argued that the policy and discursive changes indicate a shift from the dualistic urban-rural segregation to a multiplication of legal statuses, boundaries and hierarchies of citizenship that do not operate exclusively along the line of geographical boundaries. These technologies of citizenship are also examined from a global comparative perspective. Whereas the hukou regime that offers internal migrants differentiated access to rights based on their assumed economic worth is reminiscent of the governance of international migration in other national contexts, the suzhi discourse can be compared to the idea of liberal improvement.	en_US
dc.description.sponsorship	Cornell East Asia Program	en_US
dc.description.viewer	1_5r2es4bd
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1813/111317
dc.language.iso	en	en_US
dc.publisher	East Asia Program, Cornell University	en_US
dc.relation.hasversion	https://vimeo.com/521547873/00d8964b58	en_US
dc.rights	Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/	*
dc.subject	East Asia	en_US
dc.subject	China	en_US
dc.subject	migration	en_US
dc.subject	social anthropology	en_US
dc.title	Hukuo and Suzhi as Chinese Technologies of Governing Citizenship and Internal Migration in China	en_US
dc.type	video/moving image	en_US
schema.accessibilityFeature	captions	en_US
schema.accessibilitySummary	Closed captions available	en_US