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China and Postsocialist Anthropology by Andrew B. Kipnis Pdf
A sophisticated and insightful analysis of post-socialist regimes seen through the prism of the Chinese case. Author Andrew Kipnis is solidly versed in social theory and conceptual anthropology building on his in-depth, on-the-ground knowledge of today's China. Kipnis is Senior Fellow in the Contemporary China Centre of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at Australian National University and co-editor of The China Journal.
China and Postsocialist Anthropology by Andrew Kipnis Pdf
China and Postsocialist Anthropology applies lessons learned from socialist governance, especially in China, to the realm of social theory. Socialist governance explicitly draws on various aspects of Marxist theory and thus directly illuminates issues as varied as theorizing power, imagining the relationship between continuity and discontinuity in historical process, utilizing the category of "the political" when writing about culture and society, and conceptualizing categories like class, the state, the market, and citizenship. Many of the most destructive episodes of socialist governance can be linked to two major themes in Maoism and Marxism: a holistic conception of society; and a positive valuation of politicization (in the forms of conflict, struggle, and political oppositionality). Both themes play an important role in the practical exercise of socialist governance and, in the process, generate a number of related sub-themes, or socialist logics. These two overarching themes come together in the practice and concept of socialist revolution--an armed struggle that transforms society from one holistic form (capitalism) to another (socialism). China and Postsocialist Anthropology explores and develops forms of theorizing about society and politics which avoid the over-politicization, holistic language, metaphors, assumptions, and logics so prevalent in socialist governance.
Social scientists did not predict the collapse of the socialist system in 1989-91 and their attempts to explain postsocialism have not been comprehensive. Economic disintegration and political instability have been documented, but the deeper causes have often gone unnoticed. Consequently the solutions proffered, such as the promotion of non-governmental organisations as the foundations of 'civil society', have so far brought little success. Postsocialism presents, for the first time, the anthropological responses to these problems which are all grounded in intensive fieldwork. The authors demonstrate that even when local conditions are specific, the view 'from below' illuminates macro trends. A wide range of topics are discussed, including: *the role of social and cultural capital in determining the 'winners' of rural decollectivization *the devaluation of blue collar labour *the position of Gypsies *the viability of 'multicultural' models in situations of religious differences and ethnic violence *new patterns of consumption in China *the revival of rituals and the healing of socialist 'trauma'. _
The Transition Study of Postsocialist China by Wing-Chung Ho Pdf
There is no denying that China has experienced, and is still experiencing, radical changes, generally initiated by the vibrant market-driven economy that began in the late 1970s. The question remains, however, of what has happened to those who, just a few decades before, experienced pride and power in being part of the proletariat. How do they make sense of the past and face up to the uncertainties of the future? This book presents an anthropological investigation into their lives and memories in order to understand their situation.Presently a working-class neighborhood in Shanghai, Cucumber Lane was in the 1960s a well-known socialist ?model community? being transformed from an urban slum in the 1940s. The neighborhood was further recast as a ?civilized small community? in the 1990s. Based on oral histories as well as ethnographic observations and pertinent historical materials, this book portrays the ways the Chinese have been making sense of and coping with radical changes during a period punctuated by shifts in political priorities, vicissitudes in ideological orientation, changes in the way they conceive of their relationship with the state and enterprises, the (de-)politicization of social identities, the rise and fall of collectivism, and the explosive vitality of the new market economy.
Contemporary China by Tamara Jacka,Andrew B. Kipnis,Sally Sargeson Pdf
China's rapid economic growth, modernization and globalization have led to astounding social changes. Contemporary China provides a fascinating portrayal of society and social change in the contemporary People's Republic of China. This book introduces readers to key sociological perspectives, themes and debates about Chinese society. It explores topics such as family life, citizenship, gender, ethnicity, labour, religion, education, class and rural/urban inequalities. It considers China's imperial past, the social and institutional legacies of the Maoist era, and the momentous forces shaping it in the present. It also emphasises diversity and multiplicity, encouraging readers to consider new perspectives and rethink Western stereotypes about China and its people. Real-life case studies illustrate the key features of social relations and change in China. Definitions of key terms, discussion questions and lists of further reading help consolidate learning. Including full-colour maps and photographs, this book offers remarkable insight into Chinese society and social change.
Author : Kirk A. Denton Publisher : University of Hawaii Press Page : 362 pages File Size : 47,8 Mb Release : 2013-12-31 Category : History ISBN : 9780824840068
During the Mao era, China’s museums served an explicit and uniform propaganda function, underlining official Party history, eulogizing revolutionary heroes, and contributing to nation building and socialist construction. With the implementation of the post-Mao modernization program in the late 1970s and 1980s and the advent of globalization and market reforms in the 1990s, China underwent a radical social and economic transformation that has led to a vastly more heterogeneous culture and polity. Yet China is dominated by a single Leninist party that continues to rely heavily on its revolutionary heritage to generate political legitimacy. With its messages of collectivism, self-sacrifice, and class struggle, that heritage is increasingly at odds with Chinese society and with the state’s own neoliberal ideology of rapid-paced development, glorification of the market, and entrepreneurship. In this ambiguous political environment, museums and their curators must negotiate between revolutionary ideology and new kinds of historical narratives that reflect and highlight a neoliberal present. In Exhibiting the Past, Kirk Denton analyzes types of museums and exhibitionary spaces, from revolutionary history museums, military museums, and memorials to martyrs to museums dedicated to literature, ethnic minorities, and local history. He discusses red tourism—a state sponsored program developed in 2003 as a new form of patriotic education designed to make revolutionary history come alive—and urban planning exhibition halls, which project utopian visions of China’s future that are rooted in new conceptions of the past. Denton’s method is narratological in the sense that he analyzes the stories museums tell about the past and the political and ideological implications of those stories. Focusing on “official” exhibitionary culture rather than alternative or counter memory, Denton reinserts the state back into the discussion of postsocialist culture because of its centrality to that culture and to show that state discourse in China is neither monolithic nor unchanging. The book considers the variety of ways state museums are responding to the dramatic social, technological, and cultural changes China has experienced over the past three decades.
Judith Farquhar’s innovative study of medicine and popular culture in modern China reveals the thoroughly political and historical character of pleasure. Ranging over a variety of cultural terrains--fiction, medical texts, film and television, journalism, and observations of clinics and urban daily life in Beijing—Appetites challenges the assumption that the mundane enjoyments of bodily life are natural and unvarying. Farquhar analyzes modern Chinese reflections on embodied existence to show how contemporary appetites are grounded in history. From eating well in improving economic times to memories of the late 1950s famine, from the flavors of traditional Chinese medicine to modernity’s private sexual passions, this book argues that embodiment in all its forms must be invented and sustained in public reflections about personal and national life. As much at home in science studies and social theory as in the details of life in Beijing, this account uses anthropology, cultural studies, and literary criticism to read contemporary Chinese life in a materialist and reflexive mode. For both Maoist and market reform periods, this is a story of high culture in appetites, desire in collective life, and politics in the body and its dispositions.
In China today, sex work cannot be untangled from the phenomenon of rural-urban migration, the entertainment industry, and state power. In Red Lights, Tiantian Zheng highlights the urban karaoke bar as the locus at which these three factors intersect and provides a rich account of the lives of karaoke hostesses--a career whose name disguises the sex work and minimizes the surprising influence these women often have as power brokers.
Everyday life in China is increasingly shaped by a novel mix of neoliberal and socialist elements, of individual choices and state objectives. This combination of self-determination and socialism from afar has incited profound changes in the ways individuals think and act in different spheres of society. Covering a vast range of daily life—from homeowner organizations and the users of Internet cafes to self-directed professionals and informed consumers—the essays in Privatizing China create a compelling picture of the burgeoning awareness of self-governing within the postsocialist context. The introduction by Aihwa Ong and Li Zhang presents assemblage as a concept for studying China as a unique postsocialist society created through interactions with global forms. The authors conduct their ethnographic fieldwork in a spectrum of domains—family, community, real estate, business, taxation, politics, labor, health, professions, religion, and consumption—that are infiltrated by new techniques of the self and yet also regulated by broader socialist norms. Privatizing China gives readers a grounded, fine-grained intimacy with the variety and complexity of everyday conduct in China's turbulent transformation.
Tongzhi, which translates into English as “same purpose” or “same will,” was once widely used to mean “comrade.” Since the 1990s, the word has been appropriated by the LGBT community in China and now refers to a broad range of people who do not espouse heteronormativity. Tongzhi Living, the first study of its kind, offers insights into the community of same-sex-attracted men in the metropolitan city of Dalian in northeast China. Based on ethnographic fieldwork by Tiantian Zheng, the book reveals an array of coping mechanisms developed by tongzhi men in response to rapid social, cultural, and political transformations in postsocialist China. According to Zheng, unlike gay men in the West over the past three decades, tongzhi men in China have adopted the prevailing moral ideal of heterosexuality and pursued membership in the dominant culture at the same time they have endeavored to establish a tongzhi culture. They are, therefore, caught in a constant tension of embracing and contesting normality as they try to create a new and legitimate space for themselves. Tongzhi men’s attempts to practice both conformity and rebellion paradoxically undercut the goals they aspire to reach, Zheng shows, perpetuating social prejudice against them and thwarting the activism they believe they are advocating.
Chinese Modernity and the Individual Psyche by A. Kipnis Pdf
Rapid industrialization, urbanization, and marketization have led to startling social changes in reform-era China. Mindful of the many forms of social theory that relate modernity to individualism, this volume addresses social and cultural change through the lens of psychological anthropology.
The Individualization of Chinese Society by Yunxiang Yan Pdf
Chinese society has seen phenomenal change in the last 30 years. Two of the most profound changes have been the rise of the individual in both public and private spheres and the consequent individualization of Chinese society itself. Yet, despite China's recent dramatic entrance into global politics and economics, neither of these significant shifts has been fully analysed. China may indeed present an alternative model of social transformation in the age of globalisation - so its path to development may have particular implications for the developing world.The Individualization of Chinese Society reveals how individual agency has been on the rise since the 1970s and how this has impacted on everyday life and Chinese society more broadly. The book presents a wide range of detailed case studies - on the impact of economic policy, patterns of kinship, changes in marriage relations and the socio-economic position of women, the development of youth culture, the politics of consumerism, and shifting power relations in everyday life.
Irony, Cynicism and the Chinese State by Hans Steinmüller,Susanne Brandtstädter Pdf
Unprecedented social change in China has intensified the contradictions faced by ordinary people. In everyday life, people find themselves caught between official and popular discourses, encounter radically different representations of China's past and its future, and draw on widely diverse moral frameworks. This volume explores irony and cynicism as part of the social life of local communities in China, and specifically in relation to the contemporary Chinese state. It collects ethnographies of irony and cynicism in social action, written by a group of anthropologists who specialise in China. They use the lenses of irony and cynicism - broadly defined to include resignation, resistance, humour, ambiguity and dialogue - to look anew at the social, political and moral contradictions faced by Chinese people. The various contributions are concerned with both the interpretation of intentions in everyday social action and discourse, and the broader theoretical consequences of such interpretations for an understanding of the Chinese state. As a study of irony and cynicism in modern China and their implications on the social and political aspects of everyday life, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of social and cultural anthropology, Chinese culture and society, and Chinese politics.