This article reflects on the emerging criminological research enterprise in China. We provide a brief overview on the nature of criminological knowledge production in China, particularly in relation to practical and political constraints. We contend that while there are distinct challenges associated with doing criminology in China, there are also new possibilities for alternative methodologies and critical analyses to push the boundaries of administrative criminology. Through the example of a study of migrants and motorcycle taxi driving in a Chinese city, we argue that an ethnography of the periphery can facilitate our understanding of the nuances of the social and cultural construction of the migrant crime problem, bringing to the foreground globally as well as locally relevant tensions, fragmented realities and hybridized identities. © 2013, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.