Deborah Gray White
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040900
- eISBN:
- 9780252099403
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040900.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Movements and Social Change
“Lost in the USA: American Identity from the Promise Keepers to the Million Mom March” is a book about Americans’ search for personal tranquility at the turn of the twenty-first century. It argues ...
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“Lost in the USA: American Identity from the Promise Keepers to the Million Mom March” is a book about Americans’ search for personal tranquility at the turn of the twenty-first century. It argues that beneath the surface of prosperity and peace, ordinary Americans were struggling to adjust and adapt to the forces of postmodernity – immigration, multiculturalism, feminism, globalization, deindustrialization – which were radically changing the way Americans understood themselves and each other. Using the Promise Keepers (1991-2000), the Million Man March (1995), the Million Woman March (1997), the LGBT Marches (1993 and 2000), and the Million Mom March (2000) as a prism through which to analyze the era, “Lost in the USA” reveals the massive shifts occurring in American culture, shows how these shifts troubled many Americans, what they resolved to do about them, and how the forces of postmodernity transformed the identities of some Americans. It reveals that the mass gatherings of the 1990s were therapeutic places where people did not just express their identity but where they sought new identities. It shows that the mass gatherings reveal much about coalition building, interracial worship, parenting, and marriage and family relationships. Because its approach is historical it also addresses the continuing processes of millennialism, modernism and American identity formation.Less
“Lost in the USA: American Identity from the Promise Keepers to the Million Mom March” is a book about Americans’ search for personal tranquility at the turn of the twenty-first century. It argues that beneath the surface of prosperity and peace, ordinary Americans were struggling to adjust and adapt to the forces of postmodernity – immigration, multiculturalism, feminism, globalization, deindustrialization – which were radically changing the way Americans understood themselves and each other. Using the Promise Keepers (1991-2000), the Million Man March (1995), the Million Woman March (1997), the LGBT Marches (1993 and 2000), and the Million Mom March (2000) as a prism through which to analyze the era, “Lost in the USA” reveals the massive shifts occurring in American culture, shows how these shifts troubled many Americans, what they resolved to do about them, and how the forces of postmodernity transformed the identities of some Americans. It reveals that the mass gatherings of the 1990s were therapeutic places where people did not just express their identity but where they sought new identities. It shows that the mass gatherings reveal much about coalition building, interracial worship, parenting, and marriage and family relationships. Because its approach is historical it also addresses the continuing processes of millennialism, modernism and American identity formation.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
Tracing China’s journey began from exploring rural revolution and reconstitutions of community in South China. Spanning decades of rural-urban divide, it finally uncovers China’s global reach and ...
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Tracing China’s journey began from exploring rural revolution and reconstitutions of community in South China. Spanning decades of rural-urban divide, it finally uncovers China’s global reach and Hong Kong’s cross-border dynamics. Helen Siu traverses physical and cultural landscapes to examine political tumults transforming into everyday lives, and fathom the depths of human drama amid China’s frenetic momentum toward modernity. Highlighting complicity, Siu portrays how villagers, urbanites, cadres, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals—laden with historical baggage—venture forward. But have they victimized themselves in the process?
This essay collection, informed by critical social theories and shaped by careful scrutiny of fieldwork and archival texts, is woven by key historical/anthropological themes—culture, history, power, place-making, and identity formation. Siu stresses process and contingency and argues that culture and society are constructed through human actions with nuanced meanings, moral imagination, and contested interests. Challenging the notion that social/political changes are mere linear historical progressions, she traces layers of the past in present realities.Less
Tracing China’s journey began from exploring rural revolution and reconstitutions of community in South China. Spanning decades of rural-urban divide, it finally uncovers China’s global reach and Hong Kong’s cross-border dynamics. Helen Siu traverses physical and cultural landscapes to examine political tumults transforming into everyday lives, and fathom the depths of human drama amid China’s frenetic momentum toward modernity. Highlighting complicity, Siu portrays how villagers, urbanites, cadres, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals—laden with historical baggage—venture forward. But have they victimized themselves in the process?
This essay collection, informed by critical social theories and shaped by careful scrutiny of fieldwork and archival texts, is woven by key historical/anthropological themes—culture, history, power, place-making, and identity formation. Siu stresses process and contingency and argues that culture and society are constructed through human actions with nuanced meanings, moral imagination, and contested interests. Challenging the notion that social/political changes are mere linear historical progressions, she traces layers of the past in present realities.
Catharine Coleborne
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719087240
- eISBN:
- 9781526104250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087240.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This concluding chapter brings together the range of findings from the qualitative and quantitative work explored in the various chapters of the book with an emphasis on suggesting how categories of ...
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This concluding chapter brings together the range of findings from the qualitative and quantitative work explored in the various chapters of the book with an emphasis on suggesting how categories of gender ethnicity interact to produce specific colonial identities in medicine and in particular, through the institutional setting of the colonial hospitals for the insane.Less
This concluding chapter brings together the range of findings from the qualitative and quantitative work explored in the various chapters of the book with an emphasis on suggesting how categories of gender ethnicity interact to produce specific colonial identities in medicine and in particular, through the institutional setting of the colonial hospitals for the insane.
Emanuel Levy
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231152761
- eISBN:
- 9780231526531
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231152761.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Through intimate encounters with the life and work of five contemporary gay male directors, this book develops a framework for interpreting what it means to make a gay film or adopt a gay point of ...
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Through intimate encounters with the life and work of five contemporary gay male directors, this book develops a framework for interpreting what it means to make a gay film or adopt a gay point of view. For most of the twentieth century, gay characters and gay themes were both underrepresented and misrepresented in mainstream cinema. Since the 1970s, however, a new generation of openly gay directors has turned the closet inside out, bringing a poignant immediacy to modern cinema and popular culture. Combining his experienced critique with in-depth interviews, Emanuel Levy draws a clear timeline of gay filmmaking over the past four decades and its particular influences and innovations. While recognizing the “queering” of American culture that resulted from these films, Levy also takes stock of the ensuing conservative backlash and its impact on cinematic art, a trend that continues alongside a growing acceptance of homosexuality. He compares the similarities and differences between the “North American” attitudes of Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, and John Waters and the “European” perspectives of Pedro Almodóvar and Terence Davies, developing a truly expansive approach to gay filmmaking and auteur cinema.Less
Through intimate encounters with the life and work of five contemporary gay male directors, this book develops a framework for interpreting what it means to make a gay film or adopt a gay point of view. For most of the twentieth century, gay characters and gay themes were both underrepresented and misrepresented in mainstream cinema. Since the 1970s, however, a new generation of openly gay directors has turned the closet inside out, bringing a poignant immediacy to modern cinema and popular culture. Combining his experienced critique with in-depth interviews, Emanuel Levy draws a clear timeline of gay filmmaking over the past four decades and its particular influences and innovations. While recognizing the “queering” of American culture that resulted from these films, Levy also takes stock of the ensuing conservative backlash and its impact on cinematic art, a trend that continues alongside a growing acceptance of homosexuality. He compares the similarities and differences between the “North American” attitudes of Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, and John Waters and the “European” perspectives of Pedro Almodóvar and Terence Davies, developing a truly expansive approach to gay filmmaking and auteur cinema.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
The term “China” presents many faces and meanings. The wealth of differentiating experiences beneath the surface of an enduring, naturalizing uniformity encompassed by the term has intrigued ...
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The term “China” presents many faces and meanings. The wealth of differentiating experiences beneath the surface of an enduring, naturalizing uniformity encompassed by the term has intrigued scholars, prompting them to call for analytical tools that illuminate the paradox at various historical junctures. A basic assumption is required, which forms the basis of this paper: “Chineseness” is not an immutable set of beliefs and practices but a process that captures a wide range of emotions and states of being. It is a civilization, a place, a polity, a history, and a people who acquire identities through association with these characteristics. I will highlight crucial moments in the construction of cultural identities in a region loosely termed South China (Huanan), where different meanings of being Chinese are selectively pursued. Instead of presenting reified, objectively identifiable traits and boundaries imposed on a population, I stress their fluid and negotiated qualities as perceived by those asserting them. However circumstantial the contestations, and however duplicitous these identities may have seemed, their emergence is also rooted in particular social, political, and economic relationships.Less
The term “China” presents many faces and meanings. The wealth of differentiating experiences beneath the surface of an enduring, naturalizing uniformity encompassed by the term has intrigued scholars, prompting them to call for analytical tools that illuminate the paradox at various historical junctures. A basic assumption is required, which forms the basis of this paper: “Chineseness” is not an immutable set of beliefs and practices but a process that captures a wide range of emotions and states of being. It is a civilization, a place, a polity, a history, and a people who acquire identities through association with these characteristics. I will highlight crucial moments in the construction of cultural identities in a region loosely termed South China (Huanan), where different meanings of being Chinese are selectively pursued. Instead of presenting reified, objectively identifiable traits and boundaries imposed on a population, I stress their fluid and negotiated qualities as perceived by those asserting them. However circumstantial the contestations, and however duplicitous these identities may have seemed, their emergence is also rooted in particular social, political, and economic relationships.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This essay targets a Chinese scholarly audience, who deserves a coherent presentation of the analytical themes that my South China colleagues and I have been concerned with. One cannot ignore history ...
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This essay targets a Chinese scholarly audience, who deserves a coherent presentation of the analytical themes that my South China colleagues and I have been concerned with. One cannot ignore history when one studies the unifying and diversifying cultural processes in an entity one terms “China.” Years of field research in South China has made one appreciate the contexts when regional cultures and histories were made, and how they were represented in relation to real and imaginary political centers. Collectively, we have strived to be empirically grounded as well as informed by critical social theories. Key concepts highlighted in this essay are: analytical pursuit of moving targets, structuring, human agency, social practice, the cultural language of power, locality and translocality, and inter-Asian connectivity. We explore self-reflective field methods and apply critical reading to historical texts and cultural events. We might have started our intellectual journeys from South China, but our concerns have taken us far beyond, connecting oceans and landmasses across the globe in multi-disciplinary terms.Less
This essay targets a Chinese scholarly audience, who deserves a coherent presentation of the analytical themes that my South China colleagues and I have been concerned with. One cannot ignore history when one studies the unifying and diversifying cultural processes in an entity one terms “China.” Years of field research in South China has made one appreciate the contexts when regional cultures and histories were made, and how they were represented in relation to real and imaginary political centers. Collectively, we have strived to be empirically grounded as well as informed by critical social theories. Key concepts highlighted in this essay are: analytical pursuit of moving targets, structuring, human agency, social practice, the cultural language of power, locality and translocality, and inter-Asian connectivity. We explore self-reflective field methods and apply critical reading to historical texts and cultural events. We might have started our intellectual journeys from South China, but our concerns have taken us far beyond, connecting oceans and landmasses across the globe in multi-disciplinary terms.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0008
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This article is bringing studies of Chinese culture, society, and history closer to the mainstream of contemporary social theory. By analyzing the community-wide festivals in Xiaolan from the late ...
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This article is bringing studies of Chinese culture, society, and history closer to the mainstream of contemporary social theory. By analyzing the community-wide festivals in Xiaolan from the late 18th century to the present and by explicating how the nature, meaning, and dynamics of these cultural expressions intertwined with the evolution of the regional political economy, this essay suggests how one may build upon the rich body of historical materials and rethink the analytical tools.Less
This article is bringing studies of Chinese culture, society, and history closer to the mainstream of contemporary social theory. By analyzing the community-wide festivals in Xiaolan from the late 18th century to the present and by explicating how the nature, meaning, and dynamics of these cultural expressions intertwined with the evolution of the regional political economy, this essay suggests how one may build upon the rich body of historical materials and rethink the analytical tools.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
We have attempted to use a historical study to explore the Pearl River Delta, known for Dan and Han identities separated by strong languages of literati achievements and lineage commitments. This ...
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We have attempted to use a historical study to explore the Pearl River Delta, known for Dan and Han identities separated by strong languages of literati achievements and lineage commitments. This chapter has focused on the twin issues of ethnicity and orthodoxy. Intertwined with them are larger conceptual issues concerning empire and frontier. For centuries, cultural boundaries in the sands of the delta have been fluid and often reworked under different circumstances of state and local society formation.Less
We have attempted to use a historical study to explore the Pearl River Delta, known for Dan and Han identities separated by strong languages of literati achievements and lineage commitments. This chapter has focused on the twin issues of ethnicity and orthodoxy. Intertwined with them are larger conceptual issues concerning empire and frontier. For centuries, cultural boundaries in the sands of the delta have been fluid and often reworked under different circumstances of state and local society formation.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0016
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This historical-ethnographic study of village enclaves in Guangzhou explores the intensified entrenchment of villagers in a Maoist past when they faced market fluidities of a post-reform present. It ...
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This historical-ethnographic study of village enclaves in Guangzhou explores the intensified entrenchment of villagers in a Maoist past when they faced market fluidities of a post-reform present. It underscores a rural–urban spatiality and a cultural divide between villagers, migrants, and urbanites that are simultaneously transgressed and reinforced. It highlights discursive categories and institutional practices that incarcerate the residents, who juggle lingering socialist parameters with compelling market forces and state development priorities. Connectivity and exclusion, agency and victimization, groundedness and dislocation as lived experience are captured by the historically thick social ethos in the enclaves. This article rethinks issues of emplacement and displacement, dichotomy, and process.Less
This historical-ethnographic study of village enclaves in Guangzhou explores the intensified entrenchment of villagers in a Maoist past when they faced market fluidities of a post-reform present. It underscores a rural–urban spatiality and a cultural divide between villagers, migrants, and urbanites that are simultaneously transgressed and reinforced. It highlights discursive categories and institutional practices that incarcerate the residents, who juggle lingering socialist parameters with compelling market forces and state development priorities. Connectivity and exclusion, agency and victimization, groundedness and dislocation as lived experience are captured by the historically thick social ethos in the enclaves. This article rethinks issues of emplacement and displacement, dichotomy, and process.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0010
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
A new generation of local strongmen rose from the regional fringes. Their power was not culturally recognized, but they were able to accumulate vast assets at the expense of the town-based lineages. ...
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A new generation of local strongmen rose from the regional fringes. Their power was not culturally recognized, but they were able to accumulate vast assets at the expense of the town-based lineages. They sidestepped traditional arenas of negotiation by linking themselves directly to new regional military figures in a volatile network of patronage and intimidation. A different language of power prevailed over the cultural nexus that had been cultivated by the gentry-merchants for centuries. As rural communities were drawn into the personal orbit of territorial bosses, the authoritative presence of the imperial order became increasingly remote in the daily lives of the villagers.Militarists in Guangdong and elsewhere did take on various literati trappings and activities, such as building their own ancestral halls, patronizing schools, running for county government offices, and financing community rituals. However, these ritual efforts to gain legitimacy were diluted by the rapidly deepening crisis in the larger political order.Less
A new generation of local strongmen rose from the regional fringes. Their power was not culturally recognized, but they were able to accumulate vast assets at the expense of the town-based lineages. They sidestepped traditional arenas of negotiation by linking themselves directly to new regional military figures in a volatile network of patronage and intimidation. A different language of power prevailed over the cultural nexus that had been cultivated by the gentry-merchants for centuries. As rural communities were drawn into the personal orbit of territorial bosses, the authoritative presence of the imperial order became increasingly remote in the daily lives of the villagers.Militarists in Guangdong and elsewhere did take on various literati trappings and activities, such as building their own ancestral halls, patronizing schools, running for county government offices, and financing community rituals. However, these ritual efforts to gain legitimacy were diluted by the rapidly deepening crisis in the larger political order.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0012
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
Both intellectuals and peasants have played vital roles in the political arena of 20th-century China. The short stories that follow focus on peasant life and were written by leading literary figures ...
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Both intellectuals and peasants have played vital roles in the political arena of 20th-century China. The short stories that follow focus on peasant life and were written by leading literary figures from the 1930s to the 1980s. In my introduction to each part, I try to point to the structure of values that guided intellectual thought and actions and to demonstrate the cultural mechanisms that tied writers to subjects in a political order rapidly being transformed by their often unintended efforts.Less
Both intellectuals and peasants have played vital roles in the political arena of 20th-century China. The short stories that follow focus on peasant life and were written by leading literary figures from the 1930s to the 1980s. In my introduction to each part, I try to point to the structure of values that guided intellectual thought and actions and to demonstrate the cultural mechanisms that tied writers to subjects in a political order rapidly being transformed by their often unintended efforts.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0015
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter takes a slice from the census records to examine policies, assumptions, and procedures related to a recent period of in-flow from China and to assess their impact on Hong Kong’s present ...
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This chapter takes a slice from the census records to examine policies, assumptions, and procedures related to a recent period of in-flow from China and to assess their impact on Hong Kong’s present and future human landscape. I focus on two waves. First, those who crossed the border to Hong Kong, often illegally, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, were labeled “new immigrants” and treated with scorn by some Hong Kong residents. They found work and were absorbed into the Hong Kong society. Many returned to their native places for marriage. In the 1990s, they started to bring to Hong Kong their mainland spouses and young children, who formed the second wave of newcomers. This wave is also known in popular parlance as “new immigrants” and, since the mid-1990s in official categories, as “new arrivals.” The meaning of the label changed somewhat, from one marking difference in the 1980s, to one hardened against those seen as society’s burden. These two waves of immigrants have posed complicated human resource and social issues for Hong Kong.Less
This chapter takes a slice from the census records to examine policies, assumptions, and procedures related to a recent period of in-flow from China and to assess their impact on Hong Kong’s present and future human landscape. I focus on two waves. First, those who crossed the border to Hong Kong, often illegally, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, were labeled “new immigrants” and treated with scorn by some Hong Kong residents. They found work and were absorbed into the Hong Kong society. Many returned to their native places for marriage. In the 1990s, they started to bring to Hong Kong their mainland spouses and young children, who formed the second wave of newcomers. This wave is also known in popular parlance as “new immigrants” and, since the mid-1990s in official categories, as “new arrivals.” The meaning of the label changed somewhat, from one marking difference in the 1980s, to one hardened against those seen as society’s burden. These two waves of immigrants have posed complicated human resource and social issues for Hong Kong.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0017
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
Physical symbols are not to be changed arbitrarily, but empires have related to subject populations with political notions quite different from and rather differently than those of modern ...
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Physical symbols are not to be changed arbitrarily, but empires have related to subject populations with political notions quite different from and rather differently than those of modern nation-states. Sovereignty often means something different at the political center than in the margins, and the cultural kaleidoscope we call Hong Kong is a result of numerous historical landmarks on these notions. We are all too familiar with these events and how their political history is told today. Therefore, I would rather explore the social and cultural meanings of people’s lives on the ground; we may find interesting stories there that do not fit into any standard political categories.Less
Physical symbols are not to be changed arbitrarily, but empires have related to subject populations with political notions quite different from and rather differently than those of modern nation-states. Sovereignty often means something different at the political center than in the margins, and the cultural kaleidoscope we call Hong Kong is a result of numerous historical landmarks on these notions. We are all too familiar with these events and how their political history is told today. Therefore, I would rather explore the social and cultural meanings of people’s lives on the ground; we may find interesting stories there that do not fit into any standard political categories.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0019
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
How have city populations in Asia contributed to these transformations in recent decades? As illustrated in chapters in Worlding Cities (Roy and Ong 2011), they have experienced unprecedented ...
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How have city populations in Asia contributed to these transformations in recent decades? As illustrated in chapters in Worlding Cities (Roy and Ong 2011), they have experienced unprecedented volatility in life and work due to intense flows of capital, technology, migrant workers, cultural resources, and fundamental changes in political sovereignty. A rising, predominantly expatriate, middle class in Dubai banks on the city’s future, and that in Mumbai lives for the present, Bollywood style (pp. 160–81). However, a provincialized middle class in Hong Kong seems painfully aware of its having overdrawn past advantages. The emergence of China as a global power provides Hong Kong with opportunities but exacerbates its vulnerabilities. Circulation of its population is key for future survival or aggrandizement. But in the postwar decades, Hong Kong’s diverse migrant population has become grounded, homogenized, and inward looking. With limited political vision, institutional resources, and cultural flexibility, the city and its residents might not have the compass to navigate an intensely competitive China and a connected Asia that are quite beyond their imagination. What are the future “worlding” prospects for a city if its citizens lack the confidence to move forward?Less
How have city populations in Asia contributed to these transformations in recent decades? As illustrated in chapters in Worlding Cities (Roy and Ong 2011), they have experienced unprecedented volatility in life and work due to intense flows of capital, technology, migrant workers, cultural resources, and fundamental changes in political sovereignty. A rising, predominantly expatriate, middle class in Dubai banks on the city’s future, and that in Mumbai lives for the present, Bollywood style (pp. 160–81). However, a provincialized middle class in Hong Kong seems painfully aware of its having overdrawn past advantages. The emergence of China as a global power provides Hong Kong with opportunities but exacerbates its vulnerabilities. Circulation of its population is key for future survival or aggrandizement. But in the postwar decades, Hong Kong’s diverse migrant population has become grounded, homogenized, and inward looking. With limited political vision, institutional resources, and cultural flexibility, the city and its residents might not have the compass to navigate an intensely competitive China and a connected Asia that are quite beyond their imagination. What are the future “worlding” prospects for a city if its citizens lack the confidence to move forward?
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0004
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This essay reviews the following books: Private Life under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village 1949–1999, by Yan Yunxiang, Only Hope: Coming of Age under China’s ...
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This essay reviews the following books: Private Life under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village 1949–1999, by Yan Yunxiang, Only Hope: Coming of Age under China’s One-Child Policy, by Vanessa Fong, and On the Move: Women in Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, edited by Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka.Less
This essay reviews the following books: Private Life under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village 1949–1999, by Yan Yunxiang, Only Hope: Coming of Age under China’s One-Child Policy, by Vanessa Fong, and On the Move: Women in Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, edited by Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0007
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
In sum, factors leading to different payments of brideprice and dowry are complex. They involve intergenerational dependencies within the family as well as the fortunes of individual family members ...
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In sum, factors leading to different payments of brideprice and dowry are complex. They involve intergenerational dependencies within the family as well as the fortunes of individual family members in relation to turbulent transformations of an entire century. Three crucial political turning points—the war interlude, the Maoist era, and the post-Mao reforms—have continued to create different life chances for the residents of the town and the sands and have triggered divergent strategies. In analyzing the terms of marital transfer in Nanxi zhen and the sands, I hope to provide a historically grounded and meaning-focused account of the ways transformations of political economy intertwine with cultural, symbolic resources that people use to make sense of their lives.Less
In sum, factors leading to different payments of brideprice and dowry are complex. They involve intergenerational dependencies within the family as well as the fortunes of individual family members in relation to turbulent transformations of an entire century. Three crucial political turning points—the war interlude, the Maoist era, and the post-Mao reforms—have continued to create different life chances for the residents of the town and the sands and have triggered divergent strategies. In analyzing the terms of marital transfer in Nanxi zhen and the sands, I hope to provide a historically grounded and meaning-focused account of the ways transformations of political economy intertwine with cultural, symbolic resources that people use to make sense of their lives.
Dina Matar
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190491550
- eISBN:
- 9780190638597
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190491550.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Middle Eastern Politics
This chapter draws on debates in social movement theory and activism as well as on an analysis of a select number of narrative practices circulated on Syrian digital ‘protest websites’ and created by ...
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This chapter draws on debates in social movement theory and activism as well as on an analysis of a select number of narrative practices circulated on Syrian digital ‘protest websites’ and created by activists and ordinary people to contest power structures and repressive rule. A feature of the complex transformations in the contemporary Arab world is the reversal in popular perceptions of political agency and participation. This is manifest, in its most dramatic forms, in collective public acts of disruptive politics, and, in its most expressive forms, in the plethora of individual and collective voices engaged in creatively telling, witnessing, and constructing alternative modes of being. These narratives invite co-identifications with real, lived sociopolitical situations and ways of knowing, as well as with alternative collective memories. While these narratives do not necessarily change the status quo, they may, and can, propel activism, and help explain why people who are not formally affiliated with political parties or organized in social movements move from cultures of political disengagement to cultures of political agency and public dissent.Less
This chapter draws on debates in social movement theory and activism as well as on an analysis of a select number of narrative practices circulated on Syrian digital ‘protest websites’ and created by activists and ordinary people to contest power structures and repressive rule. A feature of the complex transformations in the contemporary Arab world is the reversal in popular perceptions of political agency and participation. This is manifest, in its most dramatic forms, in collective public acts of disruptive politics, and, in its most expressive forms, in the plethora of individual and collective voices engaged in creatively telling, witnessing, and constructing alternative modes of being. These narratives invite co-identifications with real, lived sociopolitical situations and ways of knowing, as well as with alternative collective memories. While these narratives do not necessarily change the status quo, they may, and can, propel activism, and help explain why people who are not formally affiliated with political parties or organized in social movements move from cultures of political disengagement to cultures of political agency and public dissent.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
I was initially concerned with a central theme in China’s development strategy: rural industrialization. Since late 1958, the regime had promoted small-scale enterprises at the commune and brigade ...
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I was initially concerned with a central theme in China’s development strategy: rural industrialization. Since late 1958, the regime had promoted small-scale enterprises at the commune and brigade levels of administration. These were to provide the communities with income, employment, services for agriculture, and industrial skills. By mobilizing local initiative for self-reliant development, the regime hoped to avoid an exodus from the villages to cities, the social and political consequences of which have continued to plague many agrarian societies in the transition to a modern economy. My political attitudes at the time made me eager to learn how the development of these enterprises facilitated what I believed to be a gradual, benign integration of the vast countryside into a modern socialist state, and how parochial concerns of family and community might eventually be transformed to identifications with party and nation. The Chinese road to socialism, I thought, might become a model for agrarian societies undergoing the pains of modern development.Less
I was initially concerned with a central theme in China’s development strategy: rural industrialization. Since late 1958, the regime had promoted small-scale enterprises at the commune and brigade levels of administration. These were to provide the communities with income, employment, services for agriculture, and industrial skills. By mobilizing local initiative for self-reliant development, the regime hoped to avoid an exodus from the villages to cities, the social and political consequences of which have continued to plague many agrarian societies in the transition to a modern economy. My political attitudes at the time made me eager to learn how the development of these enterprises facilitated what I believed to be a gradual, benign integration of the vast countryside into a modern socialist state, and how parochial concerns of family and community might eventually be transformed to identifications with party and nation. The Chinese road to socialism, I thought, might become a model for agrarian societies undergoing the pains of modern development.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
The problems of economic liberalization in a market town in south China raise theoretical and empirical questions concerning the role of the state at the local level, both in the past and in the ...
More
The problems of economic liberalization in a market town in south China raise theoretical and empirical questions concerning the role of the state at the local level, both in the past and in the present. The failure of the party-state to disengage itself from society today is due to an administrative history to the unfolding of which the town residents have contributed their efforts. In an era of entrepreneurial vigor that is promoted officially, social life and economic choices continue to be guided by manipulations of and around bureaucratic power. State and local society have interpenetrated each other in ways that are overlooked by binary conceptual schemes that emphasize their mechanical opposition. What we have here is an example of “state involution,” of their inextricable interlocking.Less
The problems of economic liberalization in a market town in south China raise theoretical and empirical questions concerning the role of the state at the local level, both in the past and in the present. The failure of the party-state to disengage itself from society today is due to an administrative history to the unfolding of which the town residents have contributed their efforts. In an era of entrepreneurial vigor that is promoted officially, social life and economic choices continue to be guided by manipulations of and around bureaucratic power. State and local society have interpenetrated each other in ways that are overlooked by binary conceptual schemes that emphasize their mechanical opposition. What we have here is an example of “state involution,” of their inextricable interlocking.
Helen F. Siu
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9789888083732
- eISBN:
- 9789888313396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083732.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
Scholars who observed the lack of color in rural social life in the Maoist era have also witnessed and marveled at the liberalizing energies released by the recent decade of reforms. Unprecedented ...
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Scholars who observed the lack of color in rural social life in the Maoist era have also witnessed and marveled at the liberalizing energies released by the recent decade of reforms. Unprecedented movements of goods, capital, and people across the rural landscape have been accompanied by a flourishing of popular rituals. The phenomenon poses interesting questions about culture change. Has Maoist politics ironically preserved the popular culture of peasant communities to the extent that, once the party-state attempted to retreat from society, popular culture regained its former momentum to influence the process of modernization? Or, has peasant culture been so touched by the Maoist programs that what we observe today are new reconstitutions of tradition for coping with contemporary existence defined by the socialist state, rather than cultural remnants that survived the encounter with that state? On the basis of fieldwork carried out in 1986 in Nanxi zhen (a pseudonym), a market town in the heart of the Pearl River Delta known for the intensity of popular ritual activities in the past and the present, I will examine a set of rituals, especially those for funerals and weddings, and the meanings that practitioners attribute to them in order to address the issue of cultural continuity and change in rural China today.Less
Scholars who observed the lack of color in rural social life in the Maoist era have also witnessed and marveled at the liberalizing energies released by the recent decade of reforms. Unprecedented movements of goods, capital, and people across the rural landscape have been accompanied by a flourishing of popular rituals. The phenomenon poses interesting questions about culture change. Has Maoist politics ironically preserved the popular culture of peasant communities to the extent that, once the party-state attempted to retreat from society, popular culture regained its former momentum to influence the process of modernization? Or, has peasant culture been so touched by the Maoist programs that what we observe today are new reconstitutions of tradition for coping with contemporary existence defined by the socialist state, rather than cultural remnants that survived the encounter with that state? On the basis of fieldwork carried out in 1986 in Nanxi zhen (a pseudonym), a market town in the heart of the Pearl River Delta known for the intensity of popular ritual activities in the past and the present, I will examine a set of rituals, especially those for funerals and weddings, and the meanings that practitioners attribute to them in order to address the issue of cultural continuity and change in rural China today.
