Regimes of realisation: The labour politics of global retail in China

Description:

In this talk, Eileen M. Otis examines the labour politics underpinning global retail capitalism in China. Since the 1990s, merchant capital has eclipsed manufacturing as the dominant force in global supply chains, shifting economic power toward major retailers such as Walmart. As coordination and control moved to these retail giants, realisation—the conversion of commodities into profit—emerged as a critical terrain of labour and management.

The talk introduces the concept of realisation labour to capture the coordinated work that completes the commodity circuit, from stocking and scanning to maintaining order, crafting atmosphere, and performing brand identity. Drawing on ethnographic research in Walmart stores across China, Otis traces how U.S.-designed retail templates are reconfigured through local regulatory structures, state unions, and market diversity. The analysis reveals how realisation labour material, affective, and performative, mediates between global supply chains and local consumption practices, showing that profit ultimately depends on labour that renders goods legible, desirable, and transactable.

By situating realisation at the heart of global capitalism, the talk expands our understanding of value creation, labour control, and the local reworking of global retail regimes.

Speaker:

Eileen Otis is Associate Professor of Sociology and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Sociology. She is the author of the award-winning book Markets and Bodies: Women, Service Work and the Making of Inequality in China. Her research has appeared in American Sociological Review, Politics & Society, Gender & Society, and The American Behavioural Scientist, among other journals. She is currently completing a book on Walmart retail workers in China.