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'In her superb book, Jakimów draws on in-depth fieldwork to provide rich new insights into NGOs in China run by migrant workers for migrant workers. Her analysis expands conceptual understandings of citizenship beyond administrative and legal categories to explore a plethora of informal practices used by subaltern people, which have hitherto received little attention, especially in research on China. Her book is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand state-society relations, citizenship, and migrant workers’ claims to the city in Xi’s China.'
Rachel Murphy, Professor of Chinese Development and Society, University of Oxford

'Migrant workers are the most important actors pushing for change in China’s citizenship institutions. China’s citizenship challenge vividly exposes how migrant workers push for such change through their NGOs' grassroots activism. The book's novelty lays particularly in its focus on migrant workers’ acts rather than their hukou status, making it a major contribution to citizenship studies.'
Zhonghua Guo, Professor of Political Science, Sun Yat-Sen University

'By shifting the dominant focus from hukou to suzhi, Jakimów provides a new perspective on struggles for citizenship in China. Jakimów shows that rather than leaving it to the government to define the stage on which to perform citizenship, activist citizens are creating it themselves on which to perform a different kind of citizenship.'
Engin Isin, Professor of International Politics, Queen Mary University of London

'It is a major contribution to citizenship and labor studies. The importance and uniqueness of this study is in its focus on intra-national migrants who, while being citizens of their own country, are treated legally and socially differently. It thus contributes to understanding the migrant struggle for citizenship which is considered different from nationality. It also presents findings that can be applied beyond China. This book is an essential read for scholars who want to understand state-society relations, citizenship, and migrant workers’ claims. It can be used as a foundation for the study of citizenship and intra-national migration. It is also valuable for scholars and researchers interested to understand the struggle for citizenship at the intra-national level.'
Tania Haddad, Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations

'Scholars and students of citizenship and migration will find in this book refreshing additions and cues to broaden too often Euro-centred theories of citizenship, migration, and political emancipation. The book further raises the issue of whether resistance through accommodation is really a prerogative of authoritarian states. This book is also a must-read for scholars and students of China, for it innovatively connects the dots between topics (labour activism, citizenship, hukou, suzhi, and migrants in cities) often treated in separate compartments in China area studies. For non-Chinese scholars and students of China, it further stands as a methodological reminder of how topics such as labour activism are always at risk of being approached without too much examination of the researcher’s preconceptions.'
Paola Pasquali, China Perspectives

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