Female migrant workers’ theater, labor NGOs, and grassroots culture in China: variations on the theme of “home”

This paper explores self-representations of female migrant workers in mainland Chinese grassroots theater, understood as a localized variety of trans-Asian people’s theater. It discusses the 2018 play They Say that was created by women associated with the Shenzhen-based NGO Green Rose Community Center. The analysis of the text and its performance seeks to shed light on the multifaceted identities of the authors and performers of the play, who left the countryside for precarious work in Shenzhen’s production and service industries. Beyond offering a close reading of the play with a particular focus on the images of “home” and “homemaking,” this paper embeds female migrant workers’ cultural activities into a larger social context that is shaped by state policies, non-governmental organizations, cultural norms and values, and legacies of the socialist era.