Infrastructural labour, gender, and pseudo-collaborative livestreaming in China

This article investigates the gendered infrastructural labour underpinning collaborative livestreaming in China’s digital and influencer economy, focusing on the role of female assistant streamers in beauty social commerce. Through the case of Austin Li (Li Jiaqi) and his female assistants, it explores how livestreaming performances reproduce patriarchal labour hierarchies while presenting an illusion of expanding women’s participation in the platform economy. Drawing on Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory and feminist theories of digital labour, the article conceptualises assistant streamers as human infrastructure, who perform logistical, affective, and aesthetic labour essential to the success of livestreams but are structurally subordinated to male authority. Using multi-method qualitative analysis, we introduce the concept of gendered pseudo-collaboration in livestreaming, which we define as a choreographed system of gendered interdependence that stages inclusivity and collectivity, yet ultimately reinforces patriarchal authority and traditional gender hierarchies. Our findings reveal a gendered labour pyramid in which female assistants occupy subordinating and objectifying roles that frame their visibility and proximity to male authority as a symbolic form of empowerment. The article contributes to platform studies and digital labour studies by calling for greater recognition of the power dynamics of infrastructural labour and illuminating the gendered human infrastructure in digital capitalism.