[English] – On March 4. 2024, the Asian Labour Review published an interview that Samia Dinkelaker and Ralf Ruckus conducted with Chen Su-hsiang and Wu Jing-ru, both members of TIWA (Taiwan International Workers’ Association). Su-hsiang and Jing-ru trace how Taiwan’s labor migration policies have changed over the years and which role migrant workers’ demands as well as the support activities of TIWA and others have played in this development: “We still have a long way to go”: On Taiwan’s Migration Regime since the 1990s.
Category: english
[English] – On November 30, 2023, Asian Labour Review published the article Sweatshops and Assembly Halls. The Class Composition of Indonesian Migrant Workers in Taiwan’s Manufacturing Industry by Samia Dinkelaker and Ralf Ruckus. The article sketches out the concept of class composition and applies it to Taiwan's migration regime and the everyday struggles of Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwanese factories and their forms of organizing outside their workplaces.
[English] – On August 16, 2023, Made in China Journal published this conversation between Chris Connery and Ralf Ruckus on the latter's book The Left in China. A Political Cartography. The two talk about the strikes in the 1950s, social confrontations during the Cultural Revolution, the New Left and other leftwing groups and debates in China since, the necessity to define what is leftwing, and the problems of using the term "revolutionary". See "The Left in China: A Conversation with Ralf Ruckus" as a blog-text or as a PDF.
[English] – On August 16, 2023, New Bloom Magazine published an article written by Ralf Ruckus on the punk band Southern Riot, the members' daily experiences as migrant workers, their music and their lyrics in which they attack the "system of slavery" migrant workers from Southeast Asia are subjected to by Taiwans racist migration regime: Southern Riot: Indonesian Migrant Workers Use Punk Music to Claim Improvements in Taiwan.
[English] – Interview with Ralf Ruckus on the book The Communist Road to Capitalism. How Social Unrest and Containment Have Pushed China’s (R)evolution since 1949 (Oakland: PM Press, 2021). Kevin Lin conducted the interview on June 12, 2021 as part of webinar series "China and the Left". The interview transcription was published in the book China from Below. Critical Analysis & Grassroots Activism (2023).
[English] – Gongchao just published the book China from Below. Critical Analysis & Grassroots Activism edited by Ralf Ruckus, Daniel Reineke, Jule Pfeffer, and Kevin Lin. The book contributions cover key issues necessary for “rethinking” China in the 21st century, including China’s feminist movement, tech worker organizing, environmental politics, state repression in Xinjiang, the Left in Taiwan, right-wing factions in Hong Kong, Chinese investments and labor struggles in Indonesia, and reevaluations of China’s history since 1949 and the contested reform process. The book-PDF can be downloaded at https://www.gongchao.org/en/china-from-below.
[English] – This article written by Ralf Ruckus was published by New Bloom Magazine on June 5, 2023. It follows the heavy metal scene of Indonesian migrant factory workers in Taiwan and its flagship band Jubah Hitam. Caught up in Taiwan's racist migration and labor regime that treats migrants as mere labor power serving the interests of Taiwan capital, Indonesian migrant workers search for spaces to come together, be creative, and have a life outside wage work: At work treated like a robot, through metal feeling like a human.
[English] – On May 17, 2023, Ill Will published an excerpt from the book The Left in China: A Political Cartography (Pluto Press, 2023) by Ralf Ruckus. The excerpt includes the sections "The CCP’s Anti-leftist record" and "Lessons for Left-wing Strategies": Mapping the Left in China.
[English] – On April 8, 2023, Jacobin published an abridged extract from The Left in China: A Political Cartography (Pluto Press, 2023) by Ralf Ruckus: Chinese Workers Are Facing Escalating Repression.
[English] – Positions Politics published preliminary notes by Samia Dinkelaker and Ralf Ruckus on their ethnographic study among Indonesian migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing and manufacturing industries. They "share how migrant workers describe their conditions," and they "introduce racialized capitalism as an analytical lens to understand the systematic differentiation and exploitation of Southeast Asian migrant workers and Taiwan’s racialized labor market."
闹清楚 [nau̯ tɕʰiŋ ʈʂʰu] 