Two-Dimensional People: Lives, Desires, and Social Attitudes in a Changing Chinese Village

Description

Based on almost eight years of fieldwork in a town and a village in South China, this book analyzes contradictions among various dimensions of the peasant economy, social relationships, popular religion, and local politics in rural China. Compared to many anthropological, sociological, and political studies of rural China, which regard Chinese peasants as one-dimensionally materialistic, politically conservative, egocentric (lacking public-mindedness, as in anthropologist Yan Yunxiang’s notion of the "uncivil individual"), with collapsed beliefs, and thinking only of the present (or the "today-ness of today" according to anthropologist Liu Xin), this book shows that people in contemporary rural China are actually "two-dimensional": trying to combine the calculation of self-interest with affective networks of reciprocity, but often falling into awkwardness or cynicism, in a paradoxical symbiosis between nihilism and transcendence. While Marcuse used the words of Benjamin to analyze "one-dimensional man," writing "Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope," this book writes of two-dimensional people, "Only when the vast majority of ordinary people can find hope in everyday life can we finally be given hope!" This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Sociology, Anthropology and East Asian Studies. It will also be a great read to those who are interested in contemporary China in general. Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Map of Cheng Village Kinship Charts Preface Acknowledgments Part I Text 1 An Ancient Confucian Village The Old Village New Houses Township Officials Village Cadres Clan Elders The Masses Notes 2 A Centralist Cadre Rising to Prominence Returning to the Village In Power Hard Times Living Out His Days Closing the Casket Notes 3 A Peasant Boss Participating in Politics Escaping Poverty Getting Rich Enjoying the Pleasures of Life Settling Down at Home True Self Notes 4 Two Intellectuals Heading the Household The Dark Counselor Warm and Full (Just Getting By) Kin Village Affairs Body and Mind Notes 5 An Authoritarian Official Village Enterprises Urban Construction Digging Governmental Businesspeople Joining a Faction Officials’ Luck Notes 6 An Ordinary Peasant Freedom Struggling Fairness The Three Religions One God Nature and Fate Notes 7 The Younger Generation Investing Working Hanging Out Stewardship of the Land Schooling Life and Pulse Notes Part II Reflections 8 The Paradox of Transition Smallholders Agriculture and Industry Rule The Self Beliefs People’s Lives Notes 9 From the Past to the Present The Two Dimensions The Sagely and the Secular Trapped Governing the Country Managing the Household Establishing One’s Destiny Notes References Index