From livelihood to livestream: Temporal opportunities of Chinese street vendors

Chinese street vendors use Douyin streaming to navigate precarious livelihoods in a platform economy. While existing research examines digital labor and emerging business models, it overlooks how informal workers manage the dual roles of running offline businesses and livestreaming. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, the research develops a “temporal opportunity” framework, identifying three interconnected dimensions: temporal regimes, temporal performativity, and the temporal production of opportunities. This captures (1) how vendors’ labor practices are restructured and interwoven, generating new synchronization and temporal constraints; (2) how time becomes a critical resource and component of streaming performances, with vendors skillfully orchestrating rhythms, durations, and sequences to sustain audience engagement and increase earnings; and (3) how platforms mediate economic possibilities, shaping uncertainties tied to algorithmic dynamics. This study clarifies the complex interplay of time, labor, and digital platforms in informal economies, advancing the understanding of temporality and performativity in platform-mediated livelihoods.