The Social Logics of Traffic Hustling: An Ethnographic Study of Speculative Labour and Digital Hustle in Urban China

This project explores the lived experiences of Chinese live streamers, particularly rural-to-urban migrant workers, who engage in digital traffic "hustling" on platforms. It investigates how these individuals seek economic survival and upward mobility by gaining online visibility, performing emotional and gendered labour, and adapting to unpredictable platform dynamics.
Set against the backdrop of China's platform economy, the project examines how digital labour intersects with broader social structures, including declining class mobility, the transformation of work and intimacy, and the reconfiguration of hope in a post-industrial and post-COVID society. It pays particular attention to second-generation migrant workers who, facing limited offline opportunities, turn to livestreaming as a means of navigating structural barriers and social precarity.
Using ethnographic methods-including long-term participant observation, in-depth interviews, and fieldnotes-this research provides grounded insight into the everyday strategies, affective challenges, and social relationships that underpin the pursuit of digital visibility. The project also critically reflects on how platform governance and the commodification of attention and intimacy shape the possibilities and limits of digital futures for marginalised workers.
By foregrounding the voices and narratives of live streamers themselves, the project contributes to understanding how digital platforms reshape labour, social aspiration, and inequality in contemporary China, and how individuals manoeuvre through digital environments marked by both opportunity and constraint.