In Chinese cultural tradition, there is a classic division between rural narrative and urban narrative. However, the emergent social, economic and cultural phenomenon of migrant workers in the post-Mao period has challenged this binary system of rural/urban narratives. Traditionally, the study of the rural narrative has focused on works describing village life and peasants, and therefore has not regarded texts of rural-urban migration as its main research target. Similarly, the study of the urban narrative has focused on works of city life and urbanites, in particular middle-class intellectuals and youth of Generation X, and thus also has excluded stories of rural migrants from its field. As a result, a large body of literary and cinematic texts about rural migrants has been left out of the realm of research. My dissertation aims to clean out such a space for the previously unaddressed narrative mode, and attempts to bridge the gap between the two existing cultural traditions.

I argue that in addition to the rural and the urban narratives, there is another important narrative mode---migrant narrative, centered in traditions of modern Chinese cultural history. This previously unaddressed narrative mode focuses mainly on spatiality and translocality, and needs to be understood primarily as spatial stories, for its main focus is mobility and transformation in spaces and places. Thematically, it usually explores material changes and emotional experiences in the places and locations through which notions of identity, individual expression and belonging are transformed.

My research has two primary goals: (1) to provide a new insight into narrative traditions in Chinese cultural history, and establish a preliminary framework for migrant narratives by laying out representative works, writers, and filmmakers of this narrative mode, and (2) to further delve into various recurring themes and motifs about migrant workers in literature, film and TV from the 1980s to 2011, discussing the cultural, social and political significance of the narrative in contemporary China. The latter will be the major focus of my dissertation.