Research
I study the labor through which commodities realize their value.
My research examines labor, gender, globalization, and political economy through ethnographic studies of workplaces in contemporary China. While political economists have traditionally followed commodities through production and global supply chains, I investigate the labor processes through which commodities realize their value.
Realization Labor
Realization labor refers to the labor involved in moving, stocking, displaying, explaining, transacting, and selling commodities so that value can be realized through exchange.
Internal Supply Chains
The internal supply chain refers to the pathways through which commodities move within retail organizations - from receiving dock to stockroom, sales floor, checkout counter, and fulfillment systems.
Labor Regimes
Following commodities through the internal supply chain reveals how multiple labor regimes coexist within a single firm and how workers experience distinct forms of control, consent, resistance, and inequality.
Gender and Service Work
A longstanding focus of my research is the role of service labor in the production of gendered and classed inequalities in contemporary China.
Research Trajectory
A longstanding focus of my research is the relationship between economic transformation and inequality in contemporary China. Markets and Bodies: Women, Service Work and the Making of Inequality in China (Stanford University Press, 2011) examined how the rise of consumer markets reshaped gender, labor, and social stratification through the expansion of service employment.
My more recent work examines retail capitalism and the labor processes through which commodities realize their value. Walmart: Made in China (Stanford University Press, 2026) develops the concepts of realization labor and the internal supply chain to explain how commodities move through retail organizations and how distinct labor regimes are arrayed along the pathways through which commodities realize their value. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Walmart stores across China, the book brings together political economy, labor process theory, and the sociology of service work to examine labor at the end of the commodity chain.
Current Projects
Realization Labor and Retail Capitalism
Research on the labor processes through which commodities realize their value.
Reconstructing Labor Process Theory
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.
This article extends labor process theory beyond the factory floor by examining labor regimes organized around circulation, retail, and realization.
Gender, Globalization, and Service Work
Research on gendered labor markets, embodied labor, service work, and inequality in contemporary China.