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SUMMARY:Valuing the Human Body by Discounting Labor Capacity: Evidence fro
 m Industrial Injury Cases in China - Enying Zheng
DTSTART:20141023T121000Z
DTEND:20141023T130000Z
UID:TALK54383@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Felice Torrisi
DESCRIPTION:This paper unpacks a contested process of valuing the human bo
 dy in what I call the market analogy of “forced exchanges” drawing on 
 a unique dataset of all 294 work-related injury cases handled by a flagshi
 p labor dispute arbitration commission in 2010 in southern China.  Within 
 this system with a list of compensatory categories and the corresponding s
 tandards and benchmarks\, there still emerge considerable variations in ar
 bitration processes and arbitral awards\, controlling for arbitration requ
 ests.  In this research setting\, I argue that the human body is measured 
 by the labor capacity embodied in it\, which has become commensurable and 
 quantifiable through wages.  The prevalence of a performance-pay system an
 d a lack of tailored contracts result in a contested calculation of wages 
 by dispute parties.  Guided by prescribed compensatory standards\, arbitra
 tors often discount workers’ self-reported wages\, which lead to a small
 er amount of arbitral awards (vs. the arbitration request).  Based on both
  quantitative and qualitative analysis of these 294 cases supplemented by 
 interviews and a survey of 10\,169 injured workers in the same region in t
 he 2010s\, this paper specifies two findings: 1) a one percent increase in
  wage discount led to a 1.3 percent decrease in the amount of arbitral awa
 rds\; and 2) having a written employment contract counterintuitively lower
 ed the amount of arbitral awards by 35.6 percent.  This paper contributes 
 to the market morality literature in controversial human body markets (bro
 adly defined) by extending prior research primarily on the market formatio
 n stage to investigating the ground level legitimacy contestation in prici
 ng peculiar goods against fictional market reasoning and techniques.  This
  research also enriches research on dispute resolution and empirical legal
  studies.
LOCATION:1 Newnham Terrace\, Darwin College
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