Research On The Construction Of Community Identity And Social Memory Of Workers In Chinese State-owned Enterprises

After 1949,China established a social system with the work-unit system as the main organizational form in cities and towns.As an important part of the system,state-owned enterprises(SOE)enjoyed preferential allocation of public resources before the 1990 s.Factory workers work and live in this public space,becoming a typical community group and forming a special group consciousness--community identity.The reform of state-owned enterprises has broken down the original clear barriers to resources,greatly expanded the living radius of workers in state-owned enterprises,and weakened the standardization of the former workers' communities.In different stages of SOE reform,what changes have taken place in the community identity of SOE workers? What factors influence the construction of these changes? How does the image of the factory change in media reports? What collective memories do SOE workers have of their community identities at different stages? Whether workers' collective memory and medias' memory overlap,what are the similarities and differences? This paper sorts out and answers these questions according to the context of historical changes.The research object of this paper is the former Bengbu Jin Guang steel plant in Anhui province.Jin Guang steel plant was founded in 1960 s due to the policy of three-line construction.Jin Guang steel plant started from dabie mountain area and relocated to Bengbu city after the reform and opening up.Its main product rim steel used to occupy 22% of the national market share,and ended up in the state-owned enterprise reform.This paper use the qualitative research method to focus the employees and leadership of the multi-person original metallurgous steel plant as the key interview object,and record the identity change and personal memory in the historical background of different period in their mouth.In addition,this paper paid attention to digging out the "deviation" of personal memory and actions outside the collective memory,discussed the phenomenon of internal stratification of workers in state-owned enterprises,which was rarely paid attention to,and recorded thegermination of personal consciousness while describing the more unified identity changes.This paper divides the construction of community identity of workers in state-owned enterprises into four stages: "work-unit people","factory people","laid-off workers" and "social people".In the point of this paper,the identity of "work-unit people" is constructed by the system of units from the top down and strengthened by the independent enterprise system and the contrast with farmers.With the increase of enterprise benefits,a number of benefits will strengthen the identity of "work-unit people" into "factory people";And because of the decline of the economic and social status of state-owned enterprises after the restructuring,the marginalized cognition has become "laid-off workers".After entering the society,whether it is forced to transfer the feeling of loss or the active awakening of self-role,the transformation into "social people" will be realized after a long period of time.The study found that,after the SOEs were reorganized,the workers who turned into "social people" were still able to maintain the same old neighborhood track,and as the development of new media technology transformed into the interactive space based on mutual interest,this interactive space had a new opportunity to develop in the same way that the aging of the participants became increasingly difficult to maintain.However,as the physical community that once depended on for survival,due to the gradual weakening of the color of state-owned enterprises due to the flow of personnel,it has fully integrated into the city while retaining some regional characteristics.The collective memory of the factory is consistent with the media memory in the prosperous years of the factory.Prosperous production workshops and abundant supplies were the common background of the period.However,the media rarely reported on the factory during the bankruptcy period,which showed the mismatch between collective memory and media memory at this stage.In the end,the research found that despite their different family backgrounds and personal interests,striving and striving for a better life are the common choices of the workers of state-owned enterprises who have gone through hardships.They have been abandoned by the glory of the unit system and the reform of the system of state-owned enterprises,and they are also worried about the potential policy of delaying retirement.They cannot pay for thegreat changes of The Times,but they are deeply imprinted by the process of history.How to record this history and respond to their needs is a topic that the whole society needs to face.