Author : Charles Stafford
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 214 pages
File Size : 11,25 MB
Release : 2000-11-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780521784344
Rituals concerning separation and reunion and their impact on Chinese and Taiwanese society and culture.
Author : Charles Stafford
Publisher :
Page : 202 pages
File Size : 16,23 MB
Release : 2000
Category : China
ISBN : 9780511172786
Charles Stafford explores the Chinese fascination with separation and reunion, based upon his field studies in Taiwan and mainland China. He gives a vivid account of everyday rituals, and examines how they help people settle into communities, and to explain the passions aroused by the possibility of national culture.
Author : Charles Stafford
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 40,4 MB
Release : 2003-09-02
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 113440400X
First Published in 2004. Separation – for example the process of leaving behind, temporarily or permanently, individuals to whom we are attached – is something experienced by humans in all societies. In the case of China, the rituals and practices associated with separation – and with its corollary, reunion – are especially elaborate. They are crucial elements within the Chinese cultural tradition. In addressing – through the use of case studies – the central theme of separation, this book also provides a good general introduction to many of the classic debates within anthropological and historical analyses of China. It will, therefore, prove an interesting and useful resource to students of Asian studies and anthropology as well as the general reader with an interest in the Chinese cultural tradition.
Author : Susanne Brandtstädter
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 26,26 MB
Release : 2008-09-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1134105878
The essays in this volume present contemporary anthropological perspectives on Chinese kinship, its historical complexity and its modern metamorphoses. The collection draws particular attention to the reverberations of larger socio-cultural and politico-economic processes in the formation of sociality, intimate relations, family histories, reproductive strategies and gender relations – and vice-versa. Drawing on a wealth of ethnographic material from the late imperial period and from contemporary Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China, from northern and southern regions as well as from rural and urban settings, the volume provides unique insights into the historical and spatial diversities of the Chinese kinship experience. This emphasis on diversity challenges the classic ‘lineage paradigm’ of Chinese kinship and establishes a dialogue with contemporary anthropological debates about human kinship reflecting on the emergence of radically new family formations in the Euro-American context. Chinese Kinship will be of interest to anthropologists and sinologists, as to historians and social scientists in general.
Author : Carlos Rojas
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 953 pages
File Size : 23,35 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0199383316
With over forty original essays, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures offers an in-depth engagement with the current analytical methodologies and critical practices that are shaping the field in the twenty-first century. Divided into three sections--Structure, Taxonomy, and Methodology--the volume carefully moves across approaches, genres, and forms to address a rich range topics that include popular culture in Late Qing China, Zhang Guangyu's Journey to the West in Cartoons, writings of Southeast Asian migrants in Taiwan, the Chinese Anglophone Novel, and depictions of HIV/AIDS in Chu T'ien-wen's Notes of a Desolate Man.
Author : Susanne Bregnbaek
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 185 pages
File Size : 50,60 MB
Release : 2016-03-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 080479779X
China's One Child Policy and its rigorous national focus on educational testing are well known. But what happens to those "lucky" few at the very top of the pyramid: elite university students in China who grew up under the One Child Policy and now attend the nation's most prestigious universities? How do they feel about having made it to the top of an extremely competitive educational system—as their parents' only child? What pressures do they face, and how do they cope with the expectations associated with being the best? Fragile Elite explores the contradictions and perplexities of being an elite student through immersive ethnographic research conducted at two top universities in China. Susanne Bregnbæk uncovers the intimate psychological strains students suffer under the pressure imposed on them by parents and state, where the state acts as a parent and the parents reinforce the state. Fragile Elite offers fascinating insights into the intergenerational tensions at work in relation to the ongoing shift in educational policy and definition of what a "quality" student, child, and citizen is in contemporary China.
Author : Xinyuan Wang
Publisher : UCL Press
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 17,64 MB
Release : 2023-09-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1800084102
If we want to understand contemporary China, the key is through understanding the older generation. This is the generation in China whose life courses almost perfectly synchronised with the emergence and growth of the ‘New China’ under the rule of the Communist Party (1949). People in their 70s and 80s have double the life expectancy of their parents’ generation. The current eldest generation in Shanghai was born in a time when the average household could not afford electric lights, but today they can turn their lights off via their smartphone apps. Based on 16-month ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai, Ageing with Smartphones in Urban China tackles the intersection between the ‘two revolutions’ experienced by the older generation in Shanghai: the contemporary smartphone-based digital revolution and the earlier communist revolutions. We find that we can only explain the smartphone revolution if we first appreciate the long-term consequences of these people’s experiences during the communist revolutions. The context of this book is a wide range of drastic social transformations in China, from the Cultural Revolution to the individualism and Confucianism in Digital China. Supported by detailed ethnographic material, the observations and analysis provide a panorama view of the social landscape of contemporary China, including topics such as the digital and everyday life, ageing and healthcare, intergenerational relations and family development, community building and grassroots organizations, collective memories and political attitudes among ordinary Chinese people.
Author : Charles Stafford
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 187 pages
File Size : 50,73 MB
Release : 2020-05-26
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1000181545
When humans cooperate, what are the social and psychological mechanisms that enable them to do so successfully? Is cooperativeness something natural for humans, built in to our species over the course of evolution, or rather something that depends on cultural learning and social interaction? This book addresses these central questions concerning human nature and the nature of cooperation. The editors present a wide range of vivid anthropological case-studies focused on everyday cooperation in Chinese communities, for example, between children in Nanjing playing a ballgame; parents in Edinburgh organising a community school; villagers in Yunnan dealing with “common pool” resource problems; and families in Kinmen in Taiwan worshipping their dead together. On the one hand, these case studies illustrate some uniquely Chinese cultural factors, such as those related to kinship ideals and institutions that shape the experience and practice of cooperation. They also illustrate, on the other hand, how China’s recent history, not least the rise and fall of collectivism in various forms, continues to shape the experience of cooperation for ordinary people in China today. Finally, they show that in spite of the cultural and historical particularity of Chinese cooperation, it does share some underlying features that would be familiar to people coming from radically different backgrounds.
Author : Tom McDonald
Publisher : UCL Press
Page : 236 pages
File Size : 14,17 MB
Release : 2016-09-13
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1910634670
China’s distinctive social media platforms have gained notable popularity among the nation’s vast number of internet users, but has China’s countryside been ‘left behind’ in this communication revolution? Tom McDonald spent 15 months living in a small rural Chinese community researching how the residents use social media in their daily lives. His ethnographic findings suggest that, far from being left behind, many rural Chinese people have already integrated social media into their everyday experience.Throughout his ground-breaking study, McDonald argues that social media allows rural people to extend and transform their social relationships by deepening already existing connections with friends known through their school, work or village, while also experimenting with completely new forms of relationships through online interactions with strangers, particularly when looking for love and romance. By juxtaposing these seemingly opposed relations, rural social media users are able to use these technologies to understand, capitalise on and challenge the notions of morality that underlie rural life.
Author : Richard Fardon
Publisher : SAGE
Page : 1556 pages
File Size : 10,73 MB
Release : 2012-07-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1473971594
In two volumes, the SAGE Handbook of Social Anthropology provides the definitive overview of contemporary research in the discipline. It explains the what, where, and how of current and anticipated work in Social Anthropology. With 80 authors, contributing more than 60 chapters, this is the most comprehensive and up-to-date statement of research in Social Anthropology available and the essential point of departure for future projects. The Handbook is divided into four sections: -Part I: Interfaces examines Social Anthropology′s disciplinary connections, from Art and Literature to Politics and Economics, from Linguistics to Biomedicine, from History to Media Studies. -Part II: Places examines place, region, culture, and history, from regional, area studies to a globalized world -Part III: Methods examines issues of method; from archives to war zones, from development projects to art objects, and from ethics to comparison -Part IV: Futures anticipates anthropologies to come: in the Brain Sciences; in post-Development; in the Body and Health; and in new Technologies and Materialities Edited by the leading figures in social anthropology, the Handbook includes a substantive introduction by Richard Fardon, a think piece by Jean and John Comaroff, and a concluding last word on futures by Marilyn Strathern. The authors - each at the leading edge of the discipline - contribute in-depth chapters on both the foundational ideas and the latest research. Comprehensive and detailed, this magisterial Handbook overviews the last 25 years of the social anthropological imagination. It will speak to scholars in Social Anthropology and its many related disciplines.
