Young Rural-Urban Migrant Fathers in China : Everyday 'China Dream' and the Negotiation of Masculinity

Drawing upon a study on rural-urban migrant young men at a delivery company in a southern Chinese city, I examine how they make sense of their private life as fathers. Situated within the pervasive national discourse of the 'China Dream' in which individual aspiration for a better life is advocated in line with the prosperity of the nation marked by neoliberal modernization, the paper seeks to understand how the marginalized urban working class young men make sense of their subjectivities through a gender lens. In particular, I investigate the process of masculine identification in the young migrant fathers' narratives. It highlights the way the young men negotiate ordinary masculine ideals and familial practices of modern fatherhood, desiring a better future for the next generation. I explore how they navigate through the constraints of material inequalities (i.e. as urban working class) and the tension with their gender responsibilities/expectations within a wider familial context, in making sense of their gender subjectivities.