God Aboveground
Subtitle: Catholic Church, Postsocialist State, and Transnational Processes in a Chinese Village
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: November 19, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9780804740975
Subjects: Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church; Social & cultural anthropology; Religion - Classic Works; Roman Catholic Church; Rural Anthropology; Religion - Catholicism; Religion; China; Christian Theology - Catholic; Christianity - Catholic; Sociology of Religion; Religion / Catholicism; Christianity - Catholicism; Philosophy; Catholic Church
Description: "This ethnographic study of a Chinese Catholic village reveals how the rapid penetration of transnational processes into the People's Republic of China during the post-Mao period has redefined and created new social and cultural structures in rural communities. In examining the resurfacing of a Catholic community in a Hakka village in Jiaoling county, Guangdong, the book shows what it means to be part of a global and modern rural village.".

"The Hakka are members of a Chinese diasporic group that in the past few decades have mobilized international campaigns to strengthen ethnic solidarity. After surviving campaigns of persecution in the Maoist era, Catholic villagers incorporated their village church into the state religious administrative structure while remaining faithful to Catholic traditions.

They managed this transformation despite a multiplicity of national and transnational processes that might have deterred them: the privatization of local sectors of the socialist economy; the global movement of people as workers, students, and tourists; and the swift modernization of Chinese production and consumption.".

"Through a close examination of the life cycle rituals such as weddings, baptisms, and funerals, and community-wide events such as the building of a new church and a celebration of Christmas, the author shows how Catholic villagers pursued strategies to make their imagined futures a reality.

For these villagers, Chinese Catholicism has defined a deterritorialized community's boundaries while simultaneously connecting them to the rest of the world through an international religious tradition."--BOOK JACKET.