Privatizing China: Socialism from Afar

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801473780
• ISBN13: 9780801473784
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.4" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher