十字架下的「農民工」：宗教、社會轉型與民工基督徒主體性的建構

Beliefs at the Margins: Religion, Social Transformation and Subjectivity Construction of Migrant-worker Christians

本研究立足於中國的社會轉型和工業資本主義發展的背景，探討農民工研究中宗教信仰這個長期被忽略的社會認同和歸屬的維度。通過深圳市民工基督徒的案例，本論文研究了宗教信仰對農民工主體性和身分認同的建構，並由此透視社會變遷背景下宗教、工業資本主義社會秩序與民工公民身分之間的關係。民工基督徒的主體性建構是鑲嵌在多重身分差序的矛盾與衝突之中：一方面，宗教確實給予了農民工一個應對和調適現實社會的生存策略；另一方面，但在階級與身分的雙重壓迫下他們仍然無法通過宗教實現對主體性的全新重構，宗教提供的資源既不能提高他們的階級意識又不能增強他們公民身分，不但如此還使他們在「多重邊緣人」的身分中進一步被邊緣化。

Religion has long been understudied in the migrant worker literature, especially in studies of religion in the lived experiences and subject construction of migrant workers in transformational China. To address this gap, this paper explores the dynamics of subjectivity construction among Christian migrant workers, with a focus on Christian churches in Shenzhen. Although Christian migrant workers are subjected to the state’s institutional rules and exploitation by global capital, they are not entirely passive recipients, and are capable of using religious values to re-interpret existing social inequalities and labor alienation. However, the restraints of multiple differential statuses imposed on migrant workers make it difficult for them to reconstruct their subjectivity via symbolic meanings offered by Christianity. This paper looks at the relationship between individual religious construction and industrial capitalism in the context of China’s current transformation.