Abstract
This study is about the current condition and development of pneumoconiosis in China. In 2009, the sensational news of pneumoconiosis activist Zhang Haichao’s voluntary exploratory thoracotomy drew the public’s attention to the occupational disease for the first time. Later in 2011, an movement called “Love Save Pneumoconiosis”[daaiqingchen] launching by a well-known reporter Keqin Wang, turned the public attention into substantial action. However, pneumoconiosis has not only emerged in China recently, the first cases of silicosis having been recorded in the Chongqing area as early as 1952. But why is pneumoconiosis, an issue that had been quiet for so long, and now suddenly taking center stage? Mainly because of the fact that while pneumoconiosis patients who had worked for state-owned enterprises, after suffering from occupational diseases, have been afforded national medical care and economic support. Under the dual influence of the Household Registration System (hukou) and Reform and Opening Up, many peasant workers who had worked in private enterprises did not get any compensation or medical help after acquiring occupational diseases. The number of these groups has increased considerably and the worsening situation in rural areas caused the issue to erupt. This study has found six different life trajectories of patients suffering from pneumoconiosis in Sichuan Province. This study focuses on the three different cases out of the six that taking rights movement as mean of struggle. The analysis in this study is based on them, their strategies and results. It tries to explain how patients employ “the law”, ”weak identity as weapon” and the “ vulnerabilities of the stability maintenance [weiwen] mechanism” as their action strategies, and how differences in access to resources and political structures lead to different rights protection outcomes, thereby exhibiting the plight of as well as opportunities for China’s pneumoconiosis rights protection movement.