Tracing China
Subtitle: a forty-year ethnographic journey
By: Helen F. Siu
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Hong Kong
Language: eng
Number of pages: 510
ISBN-13: 9789888083732
Subjects: Civilization; Ethnology; Rural-urban relations
Description: Tracing China's journey began from exploring rural revolution and reconstitutions of community in South China. Spanning decades of rural-urban divide, it finally uncovers China's global reach and Hong Kong's cross-border dynamics. Helen Siu traverses physical and cultural landscapes to examine political tumults transforming into everyday lives, and fathom the depths of human drama amid China's frenetic momentum toward modernity. Highlighting complicity, Siu portrays how villagers, ubanites, cadres, entrepreneurs, and intellectual -- laden with historical baggage--venture forward.  But have they victimized themselves in the process? -- from cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages [461]-503) and index.
Table of contents: title: Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part 1: Tracing Meaningful Life-Worlds; 1. Reflections on Historical Anthropology; 2. Cultural Identity and the Politics of Difference in South China; Part 2: Moving Targets; 3. Images; 4. China's Century; Part 3: Structuring and Human Agency; 5. Socialist Peddlers and Princes in a Chinese Market Town; 6. Recycling Rituals; 7. Reconstituting Dowry and Brideprice in South China; Part 4: Culturing Power; 8. Recycling Tradition; 9. Lineage, Market, Pirate, and Dan; 10. The Grounding of Cosmopolitans; Part 5: History between the Lines; title: 11. Where Were the Women?12. Social Responsibility and Self-Expression; Part 6: Place-Making; 13. Subverting Lineage Power; 14. The Cultural Landscape of Luxury Housing in South China; 15. Positioning "Hong Kongers" and "New Immigrants"; 16. Grounding Displacement; Part 7: Historical Global and the Asian Postmodern; 17. Hong Kong; 18. Women of Influence; 19. Retuning a Provincialized Middle Class in Asia's Urban Postmodern; Glossary; Bibliography; Index