Jackie Sheehan

Contact

• workRoom D11 International House
  Jubilee Campus
  Wollaton Road
  Nottingham
  NG8 1BB
  UK
• work0115 95 15954
• jackie.sheehan@nottingham.ac.uk
• http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/Chinese/people/j.sheehan

Biography

Dr. Jackie Sheehan lectured in the History departments of Keele and Nottingham Universities before joining the Institute of Contemporary Chinese Studies in January 2003. She served as Deputy Director of the Institute, and is now Deputy Head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies.

Her research interests include China's contemporary labour and political history, particularly the Cultural Revolution and the democracy movement, and the reform of state-owned enterprises, work for which she has had two ESRC grants for fieldwork in China, and which culminated in the publication of the co-authored book China's State Enterprise Reform (Routledge, 2007). She is the author of Chinese Workers: A New History (Routledge, 1998) and author or co-author of a number of journal articles and book chapters on labour, management, and employment in China in the reform period, and also researches on Chinese migrant labour in the UK and human trafficking between the UK and China.

In addition to her published work, she also regularly acts as an expert witness on human-rights issues and the legal system in the PRC in immigration and asylum cases.

Click here for the full CV of Dr. Sheehan.

Expertise Summary

Dr Sheehan's research covers both contemporary China (1978-present) and the Mao Zedong era (1949-77). Her work in contemporary history has focused on Chinese labour, particularly the ruling Chinese Communist Party's (CCP'S) relationship with the urban working class since 1949, the role of the official trade unions, and pressures for better representation of workers' interests in the PRC, including demands for and attempts to set up independent trade unions.

She has published extensively on state-enterprise reform in the Chinese steel industry, with a particular focus on the lay-offs and employment restructuring carried out from the mid-1990s and their effects on workers' relations with management and government.

In the past two years, Dr Sheehan has also begun researching Chinese migrant labour in the UK and Europe, and particularly on forms of coerced or unfree labour among migrant workers and human trafficking.

She is also working on human trafficking both within China and between China and the UK, including the legal and institutional frameworks for victim identification and support in both countries and how trafficking functions as a transnational business.

Research Summary

Contemporary Chinese labour and political history, particularly the Cultural Revolution, the democracy movement, independent workers' organizations, and state-enterprise reform.

Current projects: book on the Red Guard movement in the Cultural Revolution

Articles on Chinese migrant labour in the UK and Europe, looking at employment, working conditions, and instances of coreced labour by migrants

Article on weaknesses of the anti-trafficking programmes of China and the UK and how human trafficking is organized between China and the UK

Article on the educational benefits to students of short study-trips to China

Recent Publications

• SHEEHAN, J., 2013. Hidden in plain sight: Chinese victims of transnational trafficking to the UK. In: WU, B., YAO, S. and CHEN, J., eds., China's development and harmonization: towards a balance with nature, society and the international community Routledge. (In Press.)
• WU, B. and SHEEHAN, J., 2011. Globalization and vulnerability of Chinese migrant workers in Italy: empirical evidence on working conditions and their consequences Journal of Contemporary China. 20(68), 135-152
• SHEEHAN, J., 2011. Labor representation and organization under state capitalism in China. In: POLLARD, V.K., ed., State capitalism, contentious politics and large-scale social change Brill.
• WU, B., GUO, L. and SHEEHAN, J., 2010. Employment conditions of Chinese migrant workers in the East Midlands: a pilot study in a context of economic recession International Labour Office. (9789221236931)

• View all publications

Past Research

Reform of state-owned enterprises in China

The Chinese steel industry under reform

The 1989 Democracy Movement

Future Research

Comparative work on trafficking prevention/detection and victim identification/support in East and Southeast Asia, possibly including Taiwan, Malaysia, China, and others

• SHEEHAN, J., 2013. Hidden in plain sight: Chinese victims of transnational trafficking to the UK. In: WU, B., YAO, S. and CHEN, J., eds., China's development and harmonization: towards a balance with nature, society and the international community Routledge. (In Press.)
• WU, B. and SHEEHAN, J., 2011. Globalization and vulnerability of Chinese migrant workers in Italy: empirical evidence on working conditions and their consequences Journal of Contemporary China. 20(68), 135-152
• SHEEHAN, J., 2011. Labor representation and organization under state capitalism in China. In: POLLARD, V.K., ed., State capitalism, contentious politics and large-scale social change Brill.
• WU, B., GUO, L. and SHEEHAN, J., 2010. Employment conditions of Chinese migrant workers in the East Midlands: a pilot study in a context of economic recession International Labour Office. (9789221236931)
• HASSARD, J., MORRIS, J., SHEEHAN, J. and XIAO, Y., 2010. China's state-owned enterprises: economic reform and organizational restructuring Journal of Organizational Change Management. 23(5), 500-516
• JOHN HASSARD, JACKIE SHEEHAN and XIAO YUXIN, 2008. Chinese state-enterprise reform: Economic transition, labour unrest and worker representation Capital and Class. 32(3), 31-52
• HASSARD, J., SHEEHAN, J., ZHOU, M., TERPSTRA-TONG, J. and MORRIS, J., 2007. China's state enterprise reform: From Marx to the market London: Routledge.
• HASSARD, J., MORRIS, J., SHEEHAN, J. and XIAO, Y., 2007. Steeling for reform: state-enterprise restructuring and the surplus labour question. In: LEE, G.O.M. and WARNER, M., eds., Unemployment in China: economy, human resources and labour markets London: Routledge. 203-228
• JOHN HASSARD, JONATHAN MORRIS, JACKIE SHEEHAN and XIAO YUXIN, 2006. Downsizing the Danwei: Chinese state-enterprise reform and the surplus labour question International Journal of Human Resource Management. 17(8), 1441-1455
• HASSARD, J., MORRIS, J. and SHEEHAN, J., 2004. The 'Third Way': The future of work and organization in a 'corporatized' Chinese economy International Journal of Human Resource Management. 15(2), 314-330
• HASSARD, J., MORRIS, J. and SHEEHAN, J., 2002. The elusive market: privatization, politics, and state-enterprise reform in China British Journal of Management. 13(3), 221-231
• MORRIS, J., HASSARD. J. and SHEEHAN, J., 2002. Privatization, Chinese style: Economic reform and the state-owned enterprise Public Administration. 80(2), 359-373
• HASSARD, J., MORRIS, J., SHEEHAN, J. and XIAO, Y., 2002. Globalization, economic institutions, and workplace change: The economic reform process in China. In: DEBRAH, Y. and SMITH, I., eds., Globalization, employment and the workplace Routledge. 115-129
• MORRIS, J., SHEEHAN, J. and HASSARD, J., 2001. From dependency to defiance? Work-unit relationships in China's state-enterprise reforms Journal of Management Studies. 38(5), 697-717
• HASSARD, J., SHEEHAN, J., MORRIS, J. and XIAO, Y., 2001. In search of enterprise: State-sector reform and societal transformation in China Journal of East European Management Studies. 6(3), 261-277
• XIAO, Y., HASSARD, J., SHEEHAN, J. and MORRIS, J., 2001. The Group Company System Experiement in China International Journal of Applied Management. 2(2), 119-130
• SHEEHAN, J., 2000. From client to challenger: workers, management and the state in post-Deng China. In: WARNER, M, ed., Changing Workplace Relations in the Chinese Economy MacMillan Publishers Ltd, London. 247-262
• SHEEHAN, J., MORRIS, J. and HASSARD, J., 2000. Redundancies in Chinese State Enterprises: A Research Report Industrial Relations. VOL 39(PART 3), 486-501
• HASSARD, J., SHEEHAN, J. and MORRIS, J., 1999. Enterprise Reform in Post-Deng China International Studies of Management and Organization. VOL 29(PART 3), 54-83
• SHEEHAN, JACKIE, 1966-, 1998. Chinese workers : a new history / Jackie Sheehan London : Routledge, 1998.
• SHEEHAN, J., 1996. Is there another Tiananmen uprising in the offing? Jane's Intelligence Review. 8(12), 554-556