Books & Projects

Labor, value, and inequality in contemporary China.

Walmart:
Made in China
Stanford University Press · 2026

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Walmart: Made in China

Stanford University Press, 2026

Walmart: Made in China follows Walmart's development in China through ethnographic research conducted across stores, occupations, and labor processes. The book develops the concepts of realization labor and internal supply chains to explain how commodities move through retail organizations and how value is secured through labor performed at the point of sale.

By following commodities from receiving docks to stockrooms, sales floors, checkout counters, and fulfillment systems, the book shows how distinct labor regimes are arrayed along the internal supply chain. It brings political economy, labor process theory, and the sociology of service work into a shared frame.

Reviews and Endorsements

To be added.

Events and Media

To be added.

Markets and Bodies

Stanford University Press, 2011

Markets and Bodies: Women, Service Work and the Making of Inequality in China examines how China's emerging consumer economy transformed gender, service work, and inequality.

Winner: Distinguished Book Award, American Sociological Association, Sex and Gender Section.

Forthcoming Article

Otis, Eileen M. Forthcoming. "From the Factory Floor to the Retail Aisle: Reconstructing Burawoy's Labor Politics in the Age of Merchant Capital." Critical Sociology.