Papers by Charlotte Goodburn
Work, Employment and Society, 2024
This article explores two examples of worker housing in India, and compares these to China's "dor... more This article explores two examples of worker housing in India, and compares these to China's "dormitory labour regime", arguing that these methods of labour accommodation are part of a broader, increasingly global, workplace-residence regime aimed at migrant labour control for the purposes of value extraction. Contrary to Pun and Smith (2007), it argues that China's system is not unique, but part of the political economy of contemporary global capitalism. Although there exist historical and contextual variations between the two Indian case studies, drawn from the Delhi NCR garment sector and the Andhra Pradesh electronics industry, as well as between the Indian and Chinese contexts, the aims and many of the outcomes are similar. Moving beyond a focus on the country-and space-specific "dormitory labour regime" facilitates a broader understanding of the crucial role contemporary workplace-residence systems play in enhancing control of migrant labour for the benefit of global accumulation networks.
World Development, 2025
This article examines outcomes of three different modes of in-situ urbanisation in the context of... more This article examines outcomes of three different modes of in-situ urbanisation in the context of large "Chinesestyle" Special Economic Zone (SEZ) development in rural India, arguing that mode of village incorporation has an important impact on development outcomes for local populations. It compares three Indian cases with the early stages of the SEZ "model" in China's Shenzhen, where urban villages emerged, a thriving rentier economy grew, and structural transition was combined with distinctive infrastructural and governance outcomes. Although much work has examined macro-level economic contributions of India's SEZs, little attention has been paid to implications for local areas beyond initial protests over dispossession, and none has focused on impacts for those whose rural settlements are enveloped by the new industrial area. Whether India's new urban villages experience similar structural transformation to their Chinese counterparts is therefore unknown. Based on in-depth qualitative fieldwork in three SEZs in south, north and west India (2018-2023), as well as earlier fieldwork in Shenzhen (2008), this study assesses shifts in livelihoods, institutions and urbanisation. It argues that the three different approaches to incorporating villages derive from the dynamics of local land politics, and contribute to varying forms and degrees of livelihoods transition, in which their interactions with local institutions of rural governance are highly relevant. The article thus contributes to a re-examination of the relationship between industrialisation and urbanisation in the developing world, highlighting how agrarian societies are shaped and reshaped by processes of urbanisation and industrialisation and vice versa. Overall, while the north Indian SEZ has produced better livelihoods outcomes than the south or west, in all three cases structural transitions are incomplete and inequitable, and none have produced the widespread economic benefits for locals seen in China.
Modern China
This article examines the use of internal labor export as a development strategy by local governm... more This article examines the use of internal labor export as a development strategy by local governments in Qinghai, focusing on the province's "noodle economy" as a cornerstone of local development. Based on multi-sited qualitative research, it shows how county authorities in Hualong and Xunhua have mobilized training, subsidized loans, cadre persuasion and branch offices to encourage Hui and Salar households to relocate into urban catering across eastern China. This strategy has generated tangible gains, lifting families out of poverty and generating remittances, consumption and state revenues. Yet it has also produced uneven and ambivalent outcomes: precarious livelihoods for whole families relocated to restaurant niches, exclusion from welfare and schooling in destinations, and the long-term hollowing out of villages. By analyzing labor export as an institutionalized development strategy of local states, this article reframes internal migration in China not simply as a household strategy, in which local states may act as a constraint to migrant settlement, nor yet as a resettlement scheme for poverty reduction, but as a structured mode of exporting populations to stimulate growth in the origin-much like that of international "emigration states". Moreover, unlike central Chinese initiatives that encourage return and investment for rural revitalization, Qinghai's counties aim not at temporary mobility but long-term or permanent relocation, raising broader questions about rural transformation, poverty alleviation and the ethics of state migration brokerage. The findings contribute to broader debates on Chinese migration and development by highlighting how risks and social costs are shifted onto migrant families, while remittances are celebrated as collective gains.
Work in the Global Economy, 2026
This article examines the gendered dynamics of dormitory labour regimes (DLRs) within Special Eco... more This article examines the gendered dynamics of dormitory labour regimes (DLRs) within Special Economic Zones (SEZs) beyond China, focusing on rural-urban migrant women in India and Uganda. It positions the DLR as an increasingly global mode of migrant labour control, informed by China’s SEZ model, where dormitory housing became integral to managing a transient, predominantly female, migrant workforce. Based on qualitative fieldwork in two SEZs, this article examines how social reproduction - encompassing biological, daily and intergenerational renewal of labour - is exploited, disciplined and externalised under these regimes. In India, a Chinese-style SEZ modelled on a Chinese industrial park imposes stringent hostel systems that restrict women’s mobility and sexual autonomy, and facilitate deferred marriage to meet both familial and production needs. In Uganda, a China-associated SEZ imposes dormitory accommodation on women who migrate to support left-behind children, embedding reproductive responsibilities within transnational circuits of accumulation. Both cases reveal adaptations of China’s DLR that entangle production and reproduction, extending employer control into women’s daily lives while displacing longer-term reproductive costs onto rural households. This comparative analysis highlights the significance of gendered social reproduction in sustaining SEZ labour systems, and shows how specific cultural, economic and institutional contexts influence the local translation of workplace-residence regimes. It argues for renewed attention to the reproductive dimensions of gendered labour exploitation in SEZs, urging that insights drawn from China’s experience be more systematically applied to understanding contemporary global configurations of migrant labour control.
Urban Geography, 2021
This article examines the development and impacts of an anonymized south Indian "industrial city"... more This article examines the development and impacts of an anonymized south Indian "industrial city", directly modelled on a Chinese counterpart. The privately-owned and-operated city was founded in the 2000s and is a key example of India's new-style Special Economic Zones (SEZs). These represent a national shift, directly motivated by the success of China's SEZs, from older enclave-style "export processing zones" to new integrated townships. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the city in 2018, the article takes a grounded empirical approach to explore how the Chinese SEZ "model" is translated into and interacts with specific Indian local contexts to produce new forms of urban experience. Specifically, it compares three salient issues seen in both the Chinese and Indian cases: first, the city's establishment and spatial planning; second, the gendered hiring practices of firms based in the city; third, incorporation of local villages into the city. These three aspects represent different mechanisms through which the "model" is translated into the Indian context, by different actors, with different outcomes. In line with recent scholarship on policy mobilities, we argue that a "model" cannot be straightforwardly replicated, and we call for more attention to the contextspecific outcomes of attempted replication, in order to understand fully the urban development implications arising from the selective, complex, multi-level adaptation of a Chinese "model" and its interaction with local Indian contexts.
Journal of Contemporary China
This paper draws on detailed analysis of local policy documents and interviews with migrants and ... more This paper draws on detailed analysis of local policy documents and interviews with migrants and officials to explore the development, implementation and impacts of two aspects of China's 2014 hukou reforms that have been less scrutinised by scholars and the press than the abolition of the rural/urban distinction: that is, the mandatory use of residence permits and points systems for all migrants to cities with a population over 5 million. Taking migrant education as a case study, and focusing on Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing, the paper argues that central and local priorities are more to do with population control than social equality. Far from their stated aims of equalising migrant services with locals, the two policies introduce new forms of educational and social stratification, aimed at increasing control over migrant selectivity, with far-reaching consequences for Chinese social development.
Book review: cosmopolitan sex workers: women and migration in a global city
Book review: Ordinary ethics in China
Out to Work: Migration, Gender and the Changing Lives of Rural Women in Contemporary China. Arianne Gaetano. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015. ix + 170 pp. $25.00. ISBN 978-0-8248-4098-3
The China Quarterly, 2016
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Papers by Charlotte Goodburn