There is no denying that China is experiencing radical changes, generally initiated by the vibrant market-driven economy. The question remains, however, of what has happened to those who, just a few decades before, experienced pride and power in being part of the proletariat. This book presents an investigation into their lives and memories.

This book concerns the post-illness experiences of about a hundred occupationally sick workers who suffer from the incurable diseases of pneumoconiosis or heavy metal poisoning in contemporary China. In exploring their struggles and conflicts in their private and social lives, at and away from home, the author hopes to show how the sufferers structure their own lives, their freedoms, rights, and constraints, and how they think and feel about their actions of acquiescence, compromise, resistance, and protest within the existing power relations. Informed by a framework that connects...