La Nouvelle Sociologie Chinoise (New Chinese Sociology) (2009)

Laurence Roulleau-Berger and Guo Yuhua, Li Peilin, Liu Shiding (eds), La nouvelle sociologie chinoise (New Chinese Sociology), Paris, CNRS Editions, 2008, 500 pp.Banished from academia for nearly three decades, sociology was reborn in China in the late 1970s and was co-opted by the authorities in the country's modernisation programme. La nouvelle sociologie chinoise goes beyond recounting the reconstruction process to present the state of contemporary Chinese sociology through 15 articles and authors deemed representative of the field of research. However, the book is not limited to compiling the big names in new Chinese sociology: Two long introductions presenting original viewpoints - one external, that of Laurence Roulleau-Berger, and the other Chinese, the collective voice of Guo Yuhua, Liu Shiding, and Li Peilin - shed precious light on the challenges of the discipline's development in China. Roulleau-Berger, a French sociologist, shows the points of contact and common affiliations between research carried out in China and that in France or Europe as a whole; but she also highlights the movement and the process of hybridisation as well as the epistemological gaps (p. 52) between diverse sociological forms and practices, opening the path to comparative reflection. Guo, Liu, and Li, for their part, stress the extent of the Chinese sociologists' mission, as much academic as social, faced with a transition deemed as unparalleled in the history of modernisation worldwide, due to the immense size of the population affected, the speed as well as the scope of the (p. 84).How to observe and analyse the social transformations? The book is constructed around three major domains or questions: the market, the city, and the state; to these is added a fourth more reflective part devoted to the modes of production of sociological knowledge in China. What does the market economy orientation represent, and what has been the impact of economic reforms on Chinese society? The first part offers diverse elements of response. Sun Liping reconsiders the theories of modernisation and development in light of postcommunist transitions in order to shed light on the specificity of the route China has chosen. Li Lulu and Li Chunling offer contrasting visions of China's social stratification, one stressing the crystallisation of inequalities since the 1990s, the other extending the historical horizon to the prereform period and pointing out that upward and downward mobility go hand-in-hand. The microsociological studies by Liu Shiding and Tong Xin reflect the complexity of the changes studied. Liu proceeds from an examination of the structure of property rights in township and village industries to illustrate the interwoven roles of administrative adaptation, financial incentives, ideology, relationship links and local government legislation (p. 213); Tong analyses workers' protests against the privatisation of state firms to draw attention to the traditional resources used by some social categories and the forms of collective resistance mounted against certain changes. The second part of the book focuses on cities, examining urbanisation through paradoxes such as those revealed by Li Peilin's study of villages as 'floating spaces' within cities, with an urban body and a rural heart (p. …