Goodbye iSlave: A Manifesto for Digital Abolition (Geopolitics of Information)

238 Pages·2016·3.61 MB·English

by  Jack Linchuan Qiu

contents
Acknowledgments vii
1. Departure: A Changing World 1
2. Patterns of Slavery 20
3. Manufacturing iSlave 53
4. Manufactured iSlave 89
5. Molding and Resisting Appconn 119
6. A Temporary Closure 171
Appendix 189
Notes 197
Index 227
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acknowledgments
This small book benefits from the encouragement and constructive cri-
tique from many people who have been so generous in supporting my
intellectual inquiries and interventions. While taking full responsibility
for this text, I have to thank the editors of The Geopolitics of Informa-
tion book series: Dan Schiller, Yuezhi Zhao, and Pradip Thomas; as well
as Daniel Nasset, acquisitions editor at the University of Illinois Press.
Dan Schiller introduced me to some of the most foundational readings
in the history of slavery and provided truly helpful feedback in every
major developmental phase of the manuscript. Yuezhi Zhao supported
and emboldened my ideas when I was hesitant about constructing my
argument.
I am indebted to the anonymous reviewers during both the internal
and external rounds of review, who provoked me with sharp but well-
reasoned criticism. Richard Maxwell and Jenny Chan shared detailed
comments on my working draft, from the subtitle to empirical evidence
to writing style. Conversations with PUN Ngai, GUO Yuhua, SHEN Yuan,
BU Wei, Joseph Bosco, JI Deqiang, Toby Miller, Scott Lash, Marina
Svensson, Adam Arvidsson, Jeroen de Kloet, Jose van Dijck, Graeme
Turner, and Ralph Litzinger were most helpful. Christian Fuchs, Gordon
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Acknowledgments
Matthew, Rutvica Andrijasevic, WANG Hongzhe, Aswan Punatham-
bekar, and Michael Curtin suggested key references that are essential
to my thinking about the issues at stake.
Working ideas behind this book were presented at various academic
and public events at the University of Amsterdam, University of Lund,
Tsinghua University, Hong Kong History Museum (organized by Hong
Kong Anthropology Association), University of Tartu (organized by the
Sixth COST Conference on Dynamics of Virtual Work), the “Commu-
nication and Global Power Shifts” joint summer school at Simon Fra-
ser University, the “Locating Television” symposium at University of
Queensland, annual conference of International Association for Media
and Communication Research (IAMCR) in Dublin, annual conference of
the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) in Daegu, International
Communication Association (ICA) regional conference in Brisbane, the
Seventh Global Studies Conference in Shanghai, LaborTech conference
at Stanford University, and the Groundbreaking Saloon (破土沙龍) in
Beijing.
Thanks to GUO Yuhua and colleagues attending the “labor sociology
forum” at Tsinghua University, my article titled “Farewell iSlave: Fox-
conn, Digital Capitalism, and Networked Labor Resistance” appeared in
the Chinese- language journal Society (社會 34, no. 4: 119–37) in 2014,
which spurred discussions among readers who sent me useful comments
via social media and in person.
The School of Journalism and Communication and the Universities
Services Center for China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong
Kong provided institutional support for this book, which also received
funding from Hong Kong’s General Research Fund project “Working-
Class Public Spheres: Media and Activism since the Foxconn Suicide
Express” (project 14612715).
I am grateful to my research assistants Joy Lin and Sophie Sun for
their careful work, and to Weiwei Zhang for her assistance.
Most important, I have been inspired by the enduring acts of resis-
tance among the enslaved throughout history and by countless genera-
tions of abolitionists promoting our common humanity—in the past
and at present. These include most prominently the international net-
work of activists and artists who were behind the “iSlave” campaign of
viii
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Acknowledgments
2010: SACOM (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior),
GoodElectronics, Bread for All, the Berne Declaration, Feinheit, and
Greenpeace Switzerland.
I dedicate this manifesto to future generations of abolitionists with
the confidence that, one day, you will live in a world that is, at the very
last, slave-free.
ix
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Goodbye iSlave
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1
Departure
A Changing World
The world is changing, not without its patterns, toward a future of great
uncertainties. Writing from Hong Kong, China, I see how this city of
seven million people has changed, almost overnight, from the world’s
leading free- wheeling economy to a hotbed of activism. Two months
ago, going through a downtown crowd, I could hear the stereotypical
Hong Kong question: “Where’s the money?” Today, on the forty- fifth
day of the Umbrella Movement, I sit next to students and citizens who
turned into Occupiers, who have blocked the city’s main traffic arter-
ies by establishing barricades, camping on highways, and demanding: “I
want true democracy!”1
From “Where’s my money?” to “Where’s my democracy?” the change
cannot be more swift and surprising. Since the British turned Hong
Kong into a trading post in the mid- 1800s, the city has been known as
a paradise of laissez- faire capitalism. For twenty- one consecutive years
since 1995, the Heritage Foundation, partnering with Wall Street Jour-
nal, has ranked Hong Kong as the world’s “freest economy.”2
But walking through the main occupied site at the heart of Hong Kong
Island, I am greeted by a huge banner: “Welcome to the Hong Kong Com-
mune.” A couple of blocks from it, a gigantic yellow balloon displays an
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ChApter 1
incredible message in mid- air: “SUPPORT from the Advertising Indus-
try.” Beneath the balloon are hundreds of Occupy tents and thousands of
pro- democracy artworks: installation art made from umbrellas battered
in police crackdown, chalk drawings of flowers marking where teargas
canisters landed a few weeks ago, and the Lennon Wall—a staircase of
stunning beauty, made of countless colorful Post-I t notes, each record-
ing a word of encouragement and solidarity. A few artists use a website
to collect Twitter posts from around the world and then project them
one by one above the Lennon Wall.3 One reads: “From Gaza to Hong
Kong, we stand by you. Stay strong!”
On the other side of the Victorian Harbor, Mongkok, at the very
heart of Kowloon Peninsula, is known as the most working- class of the
occupied sites. Here, as in Zuccotti Park, Tahrir Square, or Gezi Park,
appeals for liberty and equality are palpable and interwoven. Among the
calls for freedom, references are often made to slavery: “Retreat, you and
your children become slaves for ever!” reads one poster in the middle
of Nathan Road, urging protestors to persist. “Wearing the shackle of
‘non- violence,’ you and I remain slaves!” roars another, demanding more
militant counterattack. At an evening gathering of a couple hundred citi-
zens, a speaker of the People Power political party agitated, “You think
the authorities and the tycoons respect you? You think they listen to
you?” He continued, as members of the audience shook their heads, “No,
they see you as slaves!”
It is, of course, not just Hong Kong. With rising inequalities around
the world since the 2008 financial meltdown, there has been a notable
surge almost everywhere in recounting, rethinking, and re- appropriating
slavery, its historical origins, forms, and contemporary variation, as
renewed critique against deep- seated crises that confront humanity
today. In popular culture, Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and
Steve McQueen’s Twelve Years a Slave both made a splash at the Academy
Awards and in box offices worldwide.4 In journalism, leading news orga-
nizations launched major campaigns such as the CNN Freedom Project,
helping to end human trafficking or “modern-d ay slavery.”5 In politics,
the Caribbean Community (Caricom) continued demanding official rep-
arations from Britain, France, and the Netherlands for their role in slave
trade centuries ago.6 From Chicago to Oklahoma, reparations activists
2
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