Affect and Urbanity: Single Migrant Woman in Shanghai

Penn Ip | My research studies how spaces control and enable lower class single migrant women’s intimate lives in contemporary Shanghai. The project focuses on single migrant women at the age of 20-35, in Shanghai who work in 3 distinctive sectors: factories, bars/night clubs, and domestic services. By employing affect theory to bridge city spaces to migrant studies and singlehood, the research objective is to unfold how single migrant women encounter the spaces in contemporary Shanghai, thereby not only shaping, modifying, and manipulating their intimate lives (particularly at the affective level), but also allowing for moments of agency and sites of empowerment.