Screening event - Worlds of Labour: from socialist China (1980s) to late-socialist Vietnam (2010s)

Dear colleagues,

On behalf of the WelfareStruggle project team (https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/fakultaeten/soziologie/forschung/projekte/welfarestruggles/), I would like to draw your attention to an upcoming film screening called ‘Worlds of Labour: from socialist China (1980s) to late-socialist Vietnam (2010s)’ (see introduction bellow), featuring a discussion with the director Parsifal Reparato, project PhD candidates Yueran Tian and Ngoc Luong. The screening will take place on the 9th December 2022, from 15:00 to 17:15 (CET) online via Zoom. 
It is free and all are warmly invited to attend. Please register at: https://uni-bielefeld.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5EkdO-qqz4rEta_q-mBWljcGPyKKFQuhBqX

About the documentaries:
North China Factory (1980, directed by Tony Ianzelo & Boyce Richardson) is a documentary depicting the work and lives of workers in a cotton factory in North China, 1980. Under the socialist regime and the work unit system, workers’ residential, social, recreational and educational lives are all intimately intertwined with the factory. The film captures a lifestyle that is very different from workers’ current lives in the ‘World Factory’ of China today. 

Nimble Fingers (2017, directed by Parsifal Reparato) depicts the lives of Vietnamese women who move from rural villages on the highlands of Northern Vietnam to work in factories owned by some of the most popular electronic brands in a Hanoi suburb, a district developed around one of the biggest industrial production sites in the world. Behind the individuals’ struggles and stories are the drastic transformation of Vietnam under market-socialism, which has become the so-called factory of the world. 

About the Discussants:
Yueran Tian and Ngoc Luong are PhD candidates in Sociology at Bielefeld University, who are members of the WelfareStruggles project. They have respectively undertaken one-year ethnographic fieldwork in central China and Northern Vietnam (2020-2021), focusing on how global factory workers struggle for welfare for themselves and their families. They will share their reflections on the two films based on their research experiences and expertise. 
Parsifal Reparato is the director of Nimble Fingers (2017). He is an anthropologist, journalist, and director. He is also known for Mas allá de la Santería (2011) and Rezeki (2015).

About the event organiser/Chair:
Jingyu Mao is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sociology at Bielefeld University. She completed a PhD in Sociology from Edinburgh University in 2020. Her research interests include migration and work, ethnicity and gender, emotion and personhood, and the politics of care. She is currently working for the ERC-funded project WelfareStruggles.

After the films and discussants’ sharing, we will have 15 mins for Q&A and free discussions with the audience.