Abstract
In response to the expansion of the global market, flexibility is the significant process drawing lots of attention in the late capitalist's mode of production, but the standardization is still worth discussion in the global South. The factories coastal Chin like Shenzhen, the labour force ('workers') are mostly young people from rural village. The factory adopts the ISO 9000, a standard operational and management system, which provided by International organization for standardization (ISO) to re-organized itself. It intends to quickly establish a mechanism to convert migrant workers' subjectivity to fit into the mode of production of global capitalism. Through ISO 9000, the factory gains the certificate for its products to enter into global market. Theoretically, implementation of ISO 9000 is arguably the invasion of global market forces, which will result in the separation of production mode and society, and the 'disembeddedment' will then follow. This paper investigates the extent to which ISO 9000 will break down existing social relations and penetrate social boundaries by conducting long-term fieldwork in an electronics factory observing how ISO 9000 implement and its required programs of education and training. This study looks at the process of standardization from a perspective of moral economy, which emphasizes the consensus and negotiations between social actors in the context of daily life, in order to correct the market in the political economy view. The study found that when the factory and the migrant workers in the face of imposed ISO 9000, their response is not to reject or resist, but to accommodate at the first glance. However, privately they de-standardization the ISO 9000 and at the same time 'restandardization' the implicit rules of their interactions and exchange by their own way, through emotions and gestures, which are both silent and invisible in the documents. The tacit agreement between workers and managers co-exist in the factory with ISO 9000 market rules. This allows migrant workers find the cracks to negotiate their agency under the scientific management, to retrieve the rhythm of the work process, and to rebuild the social relationship which market penetrates. It is arguable that due to the moral economy and the market economy go hand in hand, it makes Chinese factories in the global market disembedded while reembedded in the society.