Contained resistance: lawsuits and agency of Chinese migrant workers abroad

This paper conceptualises contained resistance through labour lawsuits as a form of constrained labour agency in the context of transnational labour migration. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship in labour geography, migration studies, and legal research, it identifies legal action as an underexplored channel through which migrant workers abroad contest corporate power and assert rights claims. Based on content analysis of court rulings involving Chinese workers who returned from five African countries to litigate against their Chinese employers, the paper sheds light on both the potential and limitations of lawsuits in addressing overseas labour disputes. Citizenship emerges as an important theme in court deliberations: employers invoke shared citizenship to assert power and priority over workers, while workers frame their appeals around citizen rights and protections. Courts, in turn, must navigate the tension between universal rights and the specificities of transnational labour, which results in uneven interpretations and rulings. The inter-workings among corporate actors, migrant workers, and legal institutions revealed in these cases highlight the need to seriously incorporate cross-border litigation and its agential and structural features within labour and migration scholarship.