Irony, Cynicism and the Chinese State

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-138-59061-8
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 212 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 333 g

Reihe: Routledge Contemporary China Series

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Steinmüller, Hans

Brandtstädter, Susanne

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Kultursoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Irony, Cynicism, and the Chinese State 1. Moral Persons and Implicit Irony in Today’s China 2. The Farmer, the Foreman and the Tinker: Irony and the Displacement of Meaning in Xiakou Village 3. Morality and Cynicism in a "Grey" World 4. Chinese Migrant Workers’ Cynicism and the Politics of "Decent" Wage 5. The Ironies of "Political Agriculture": Bureaucratic Rationality and Moral Networks in Rural China 6. An Interactionist Perspective on Irony in the Street-level Bureaucracies of Beijing 7. The Rebel as Trickster and the Ironies of Resisting in Rural China 8. Freedom in Irony and Dreams: Inhabiting the Realms of Ancestors and Opportunities in Southwest China 9. Differentiating Cynicisms: Irony, Cynicism and New Media in Contemporary China 10. Afterword: Ironic Reflections in a Cynical Age

Über Autor(innen)

Hans Steinmüller is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics, UK. He is the author of Communities of Complicity: Everyday Ethics in Rural China (2013).

Susanne Brandtstädter is a China anthropologist and Chair of the Anthropology of Globalization at the University of Cologne, Germany. She is the author of Falsificaciones, Derechos y Protestas (2015) and co-editor of Rights, Cultures, Subjects and Citizens (Routledge 2013).