Mobile communication and the issue of identity: An exploratory study of the uses of the camera phone among migrant workers in Southern China

Abstract

The chapter is part of a thesis arguing that the use of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) among the migrant workers has liberated their culturally oppressed personal emotion, has shattered the normative basis of the social structure, has transformed significantly the worker's basic social network, and has reconstructed their social identity. The thesis further argues that the traditional labor capital framework fails to explain the social situation of the workers and that the traditionally framed worker identity should be revisited. If the thesis stands, the state policy on the migrant workers should be reconsidered thoroughly. For practical reasons, the chapter focuses only on the uses of the camera phone among the migrant workers and argues that these uses will contribute to the reconstruction of the worker's identity. And further, if the workers refuse to admit that they themselves are workers and try to redefine their social identity, the state policy, such as the newly promulgated labor contract law, will be meaningless to them.