Building on the analysis of administrative subcontracting, this paper develops the governance impossibility triangle as a mid-range theoretical framework. It argues that within any hierarchical principal-agent structure, three constraints-rigid performance targets, fixed resource constraints, and strict rule enforcement-cannot be simultaneously maximized. Organizations must therefore make structural trade-offs among these three elements. Based on this insight, the paper reinterprets three ideal-typical governance forms-administrative subcontracting, Weberian bureaucracy, and modern corporate governance-as distinct equilibria under different constraint combinations. It further derives a set of testable propositions to explain endogenous phenomena such as the expansion of informal institutions, selective implementation, campaign-style governance, ambiguous subcontracting, and organizational distortion. The paper also examines the implicit conditions under which the triangle holds-including technological limits, organizational absorption capacity, agent behavior, risk externalization, and legitimacy resources-and identifies potential pathways for reconfiguration, such as technological innovation, extraordinary mobilization, and organizational restructuring. By distinguishing between ex ante and ex post uncertainty management, it reveals a fundamental divide between bureaucratic and subcontracting logics. Finally, the paper argues that China's governance system, under conditions of rigid targets, resource constraints, dispersed information, and high risk externalities, has evolved into a hybrid structure: bureaucracy as the institutional base, subcontracting as the operational engine, and externalized organizational forms as complementary absorbers. This configuration enables governance to remain viable under structurally impossible conditions.
This article takes Ang Lee's Father Trilogy as a case study to examine the root causes of conflict and the mechanisms of reconfiguration in contemporary Chinese father-son relations. It argues that the tensions between fathers and sons depicted in the films do not stem solely from the clash between traditional and modern values, but are rooted in the structural repression of qing (affection) by the normative force of li (ritual/propriety) in Confucian ethics. When fathers, in the name of "it's for your own good", stubbornly uphold ritual demands such as patrilineal continuity and stern paternal authority, sons are caught in a constant tug-of-war between fulfilling filial obligations and pursuing self-realization. Building on the Confucian dialectic of qing and li, the article introduces the phenomenological notion of the halo of time, and shows that the repair of father-son relations is not a zero-sum game of unilateral concession. Rather, reconciliation emerges through shared memories and overlapping temporal experiences, in which the intertwining of retention, primal impression, and protention reactivates an original sense of kinship (qinqin zhi qing), thereby driving context-specific adjustments in ritual practice. However, even when fathers temporarily suspend their fixation on li and sons, through affective recognition, reconstruct their practice of filial piety, the deeper structural tension does not disappear. This is because male offspring are more tightly embedded in the pressure chain of family responsibility and thus confronted with a structural double bind in which paternal love always entails expectation, while the pursuit of freedom almost inevitably implies betraying that love. In sum, the article constructs an integrated analytical framework of qing-li-time, arguing that under conditions of loosening authority and family transformation, an affect-centered ethical logic still plays a crucial stabilizing and mediating role amid conflict. This study not only clarifies the dynamics of change in Chinese father-son relations but also provides a broadly applicable framework for understanding the emotional dynamics of kinship in cross-cultural contexts.
Why can the project system be implemented in a stable, widespread and highly pervasive manner, and what operational logic does it demonstrate in specific governance practices?This paper distinguishes between two levels: the observational perspective and the analytical dimension. The former encompasses the relationship between the central and local governments, as well as that between the state and society; the latter includes the essential intent of the system, and the interactive practices of multiple subjects. Based on these two levels, this paper identifies four typical mechanisms: externality, principal-agent, legitimacy, and embeddedness, thereby providing a holistic interpretive framework for project-based governance. The externality mechanism addresses the spatial and temporal spillovers of project costs and benefits, while the ambiguous division of rights and responsibilities between central and local authorities leads to significant tensions. Moreover, it emphasizes the logic of public goods while failing to adequately capture the logic of modernization and development. The principal-agent mechanism focuses on analyzing the organizational transmission between central and local authorities, especially the multi-tasking problem, as well as the information asymmetry and ambiguity arising from different directions of specialised and localized knowledge. It also helps explain the bundling practices of economic development and social welfare, and the emerging phenomena of hybrid governance and project package contracting. The legitimacy mechanism explores how performance, procedural, and moral legitimacy are isomorphically and heterogeneously intertwined in complex project governance practices, and how are they manifested in grass-roots project operations. The embeddedness mechanism aims to clarify the "dual-track" politics and how it influences project operation modes and effectiveness.It also helps analyze the heterogeneity of project system, as well as the institutional changes of state governance. In addition to focusing on each mechanism separately, this paper also provides certain prospects from the perspectives of multi-dimensional and comprehensive interactions between multiple mechanisms.
Building on the sociological insight into the "social construction of reality", this study examines how scholar-officials (士大夫) in traditional China constructed their social worlds through everyday activities that served as the basis for social action. Our study begins with the observation that, throughout Chinese history, Confucian culture had fostered a dualism between a family-state-oriented spiritual world and a secular world of kin-based social relations. Although these two worlds integrated, they were fraught with tensions, imparting distinctive characteristics to China's state-building and bureaucratic system. Building on this observation, this study applies a micro-sociological analysis of the diaries and correspondences of Zeng Guofan, a prominent late Qing scholar-official. We explore the relationship between Zeng's social activities and his spiritual pursuits, with a particular focus on the con struction of his social world. Our research reveals that Zeng's spiritual pursuits and social activities were largely distinct from one another and rarely intersected. We measure and analyze types of social groups with whom Zeng interacted, the interaction patterns both within and between groups, and the structural features of the social network centered on Zeng Guofan. While Zeng's two worlds remained distinct, his social world was structured by a"differential mode of association"(差序格局), a relational pattern that was dynamic and evolved over time. By leveraging the depth of a case-study approach, this study makes two main contributions. First, it develops a research approach of combining theoretical insights and analytical concepts for examining individuals' social worlds, a central concern in sociology. Second, it proposes and demonstrates a set of empirical strategies for operationalizing textual data drawn from diary and correspondence. We hope this study will stimulate further research on the social worlds of scholar- officials in Chinese history and their implications for understanding governance in contemporary China.
In response to sweeping critiques of bureaucracy in Western intellectual discourse, the neo-Weberian tradition has adopted a global perspective to examine how bureaucratic institutions take shape across diverse institutional and cultural contexts. Seeking to recover the constructive potential of bureaucracy, this body of work reconsiders Weber's canonical features and explores their pragmatic and normative adaptations. Within this framework, particular attention has been paid to two themes—personal ties and adaptive rule-bending—both of which hold significant relevance for governance practices in China. This article traces the historical origins of the neo-Weberian research, reviews representative empirical studies centered on these two elements, and excavates the theoretical assumptions and normative commitments that underpin them. I argue that the so-called "revival of bureaucracy" is, at its core, a search for how value rationality might be re-integrated into systems increasingly dominated by formal rationality. The use of personal ties or adaptive rule-bending is treated as a strategic means through which morally conscious bureaucrats might absorb, recalibrate, and ultimately incorporate anti-bureaucratic elements into a rationalized administrative order. Yet this technocratic vision of bureaucratic moral agency rests on a universalizing assumption: that commitment to the public sphere, distinct from private interests, constitutes the sole legitimate foundation of bureaucratic ethics. This assumption overlooks the plural moral orders embedded in distinct institutional and historical contexts and forecloses the possibility of alternative sources of organizational legitimacy beyond the bureaucratic form itself. While the neo-Weberian framework offers valuable reparative insights, it remains confined by the limits of its own theoretical imagination. For scholars of Chinese governance, this calls for a renewed effort to locate moral and institutional foundations for bureaucracy that are rooted in indigenous historical experience and ethical traditions.
For Chinese people, the choice between traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine is a common decision faced when seeking treatment or maintaining health. Although previous studies have explored the mechanisms underlying the "educational gradient in health" from individual, family, and social perspectives, findings based on the Western medical paradigm have largely overlooked the potential influence of TCM preferences in healthcare behavior. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey and an ordered chain mediation model, this study finds that the behavior of "seeking TCM" (i.e., a stronger preference for TCM over Western medicine) can serve as a mediating variable between educational attainment and self-rated health. This result remains robust after conducting both robustness and endogeneity tests. Regarding the explanatory mechanisms, the self-assessed perception of health among Chinese people, coupled with the increasingly sensitive physical awareness associated with higher education levels, makes highly educated individuals more prone to perceive themselves as unhealthy and to engage in healthcare-seeking behaviors. Compared to Western medicine, TCM's philosophy of "preventing illness before it occurs" and its relational model of collaborative patient-doctor care can more effectively address self-assessed health concerns. Therefore, individuals with higher levels of education are more likely to choose TCM, and ultimately experience an improvement in their self-rated health due to the effective response to self-diagnosis. The research results provide empirical support for the formulation of health policies tailored to China's context to promote high quality national health.
Through a case study of the Yangyu rural photography project, this paper seeks to present the situated identity practices experienced by middle-class photographers in the context of slash careers. It attempts to explain why urban residents with stable primary occupations repeatedly participate in rural photography projects and immerse themselves in "living like artists" during short-term residencies, even when livelihood pressures or mobility demands are not the primary motivations. Within a highly institutionalized career system, the primary occupation of photographer slash-line visual creators provides security and dignity. Yet it also dictates their daily life through demanding work schedules and relentless performance expectations. Often photography—a relatively stable hobby—is squeezed into the fleeting hours after work, leaving them torn and burdened between their professional responsibilities and creative aspirations. Faced with this situation, they often embrace the "artist" identity as a source of support. By leveraging the elevated status mainstream narratives assign to artists and their close association with creativity, they find a fulcrum for self-meaning, repeatedly adjusting their commitment between institutional dependence and autonomous needs. Thus, entering visual communities for local creation becomes a crucial way for them to pursue artistic identity. In terms of interaction dynamics, the visual community is guided and organized by "artist-journalists", presenting itself as a collaborative circle that blends public engagement with individual expression while maintaining a non-hierarchical style. This structure allows creators to transform their private creative persistence into a shared, discussable practice through relatively stable interactions. Regarding content, this community emphasizes field-style documentary filming of daily life. Through collective organization and interpretation of these images, it constructs narrative spaces that connect fragmented shooting experiences into coherent expressive threads, achieving an aesthetic reconstruction of everyday existence. Entering the exhibition phase, the intervention of the county-level public cultural system and curatorial team provides artists with a path to public recognition through both offline displays and online dissemination. Repeated public narration and reevaluation of the works' value also enable the photographers to achieve self-affirmation of their artistic identity. However, local creation within the visual community operates on the premise of "short-term residencies", where the construction of artistic identity often manifests as a phased self-narrative. On one hand, rural photography projects formally distance themselves from urban daily life; on the other, participants deliberately maintain a state of "both intimate and distant" relationships. This dynamic makes "living like an artist" easier to stimulate and affirm within the project itself, yet difficult to seamlessly carry back into the photographer's post-departure daily lives. Moreover, this phased self-narrative is paradoxically shaped by the temporal constraints of primary occupations and the logic of capital. The redistribution of time and energy presents an inescapable practical challenge for nearly all participants. Consequently, some creators do not entirely separate their professional identities from their creative sphere; instead, they leverage existing social relationships as a "more efficient" resource for their work. Economic considerations also become embedded in the selection and curation of creative content through more subtle, everyday ways. Based on these observations, this paper challenges existing interpretations that frame multiple professional identities primarily as livelihood strategies or tools for mobility. Instead, it argues that the identity construction of photographers with a slash identity should be understood as a situated identity practice unfolding within institutionalized career systems. This identity construction temporarily repairs the oppressive life experiences imposed by the time structure of primary occupations and rebuilds self-meaning through phased engagement in visual communities and local creative activities. Yet, within the cycle of returning to primary occupations and sustained participation, it exposes an irreconcilable tension between dependence and autonomy. The study enriches our understanding of the life circumstances and identity experiences of contemporary middle-class groups within the context of slash careers.
Based on in-depth interviews and observations of 20 urban families, this paper takes fathers' participation in childrearing through sports as its empirical object and examines the practice forms and action motivations of what it conceptualizes as sport-based fathering. The study finds that fathers' sport-based childrearing practices can be divided, in terms of form, into intermittent participation and routinized participation; in terms of motivation, they are shaped by two major orientations: relationship development and social reproduction. The former emphasizes intimate companionship, emotional compensation, and the cultivation of parent-child relationships, while the latter points to child training, intergenerational expectations, paternal authority, and the reproduction of family divisions of labor. By cross-analyzing practice forms and motivational structures, the article identifies four ideal types of fatherhood: ritual-symbolic fatherhood, affective-assistive fatherhood, strategic-conservative fatherhood, and institutionalized-companionate fatherhood. These four types show that the transformation of fatherhood does not necessarily involve a simultaneous shift in both the forms of involvement and the motivations behind them; rather, there may be a decoupling between the two: occasional participation may stem from a desire for closeness, whereas regular involvement may serve to continue shaping and disciplining children and maintaining existing family roles. The study further finds that the child's gender influences a father's decision-making logic, resulting in a differentiated distributions of fathering styles between father-son and father-daughter pairs. The article thus argues that the transformation of fatherhood is not a linear process from absence to participation, but rather an internally differentiated process generated through different combinations of participation forms and action motivations. Understanding contemporary fatherhood practices therefore requires moving beyond whether fathers are present or how much they participate, and it must further examine the logic by which fathers enter the parenting arena.
Taking the establishment of the Pingxiang Coal Mines as a case study, this paper explores the specific mechanisms through which modern industry took root in late Qing China. A definitive feature of Chinese society at the time was the central position occupied by the gentry class within its social structure, coupled with the absence of modern legal systems and a functioning state apparatus. This constituted a major divergence between China's social environment and those of Western Europe and Japan during the introduction of modern industry. The impact of this divergence on China's modern industrialisation was complex: some attempts to introduce industrial enterprises failed due to opposition from the gentry, while others succeeded. This paper examines the Pingxiang Coal Mines as one such relatively successful case. It argues that the stratification and internal connections within the gentry class played a crucial role in integrating the enterprise into local society. Upper-tier gentry figures such as Wen Tingshi served a dual role as both state bureaucrats and local elites. The ethical and interest tensions inherent in these identities fostered a persuasive transmission process from self-strengthening bureaucrats to upper gentry and further to lower-tier elites. Local gentry, drawing upon existing gentry networks, formed an intermediary group that facilitated communication between enterprises and local communities, promoting the alignment of interests between the two. As a result, the Pingxiang Coal Mines achieved large-scale acquisition of local industries and the initiation of modern industrial production, thereby driving much broader social transformation. This paper suggests that, under specific historical conditions, the collision between China's traditional social environment and modern industry may have configured to forge a unique development trajectory, generating a new power-interest structure between enterprises and local society, triggering industrial transformation and comprehensive social change. The paper reveals the intrinsic connection between China's industrial development and social transformation, providing a reference point for understanding contemporary relations between enterprises and society.
When it comes to technological transformation in rural e-commerce, the role of marginal farmers cannot be overlooked. Marginal peasant households are the key drivers behind the emergence and development of e-commerce villages. Previous studies on the development of e-commerce villages have yet to establish an explanatory link between micro actions to macro outcomes. This study is grounded in a case analysis of Nanzhuang Village in Cao County, Shandong Province, China. Through field surveys, data are collected on the village's social networks, the diffusion of e-commerce skills, and the engagement of households in e-commerce entrepreneurship. First, the core-periphery model proposed by Borgatti and Everett is applied to to classify the social structural positions of households within the village. Analysis of the dynamic e-commerce entrepreneurship participation rates across these positions reveals that the earliest e-commerce entrepreneurs come from semi-peripheral or peripheral positions, rather than from the social core in the village. Further analysis of the e-commerce skill diffusion network data using blockmodeling and relational event modeling (REM) indicates that the diffusion of e-commerce skills in village is also primarily driven by marginal peasant households. Furthermore, this study investigates the dimension of collective attitudes. Through examining mutual influences among households and combining computational simulations with empirical observational data, this study offers a bottom-up, generative explanation for the emergence of e-commerce villages. It seeks to reveal the critical conditions and underlying mechanisms that enable marginal households to be the first to trigger this transformation. The analysis finds that the initial open-minded attitude toward e-commerce entrepreneurship of marginal peasant households served as a crucial condition in the formation of e-commence villages. At the same time, the emergence of such villages is also closely tied to the renewal of collective mindset in the village led by marginal peasant households.
Given the one of the interwar intellectual consensuses that anthropology could go beyond the "primitive society", how did the community studies of the Yenching School carry on the exodus of the "primitive society" into an intellectual agenda of rebuilding the cultural nation? This paper compares the two ways out of the "primitive society" led by Bronislaw Malinowski and the cultural theory of the Chinese Community Study. Malinowski raised a deeply presentist idea of culture contact which theorized contact into a generative mechanism of culture by its own. Malinowski's way eventually joined an internationalist regime which downplayed the role of sovereign state and blurred the boundary between civility and primitivity. In contrary, the critiques of internationalism among Chinese intellectuals after the WWI provoked the community study to direct the exodus of the primitive society into renewed studies of frontiers, a powerful sociological path towards nation building in the cultural sense. The correspondence between community and frontier politics generated a dynamic analysis of the cultural boundary and therefore extended community into the cultural constitution of nation. Methodologically, this paper tries to depart from the two major frameworks of writing disciplinary history: reception and contact, and tries to rewrite the exchanges between intellectual thoughts from a sympathist perspective, i.e. the common sensibility of the intellectuals on world changes and theoretical minds. This perspective might help present the cosmopolitan nature of the Chinese academic histories.
The rise of the creative industries reflects emerging dynamics in contemporary China's economy and labor. This article examines creative labor in China's video game industry, exploring how game developers' labor subjectivity is embedded in the production process and how it is organized and mobilized. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 42 semi-structured interviews, the study finds that the game industry recruits a group of developers with a distinctive form of subjectivity, referred to as ganke(肝客), through game development competitions. Rooted in gaming culture and long-term gaming practices, this subjectivity manifests both as a passion-driven willingness to engage in high-intensity labor and as creative enthusiasm coupled with strong gamer identity. However, under increasingly modularized production practices, firms do not incorporate this subjectivity as a whole, but rather differentially mobilize or suppress its various dimensions. The article conceptualizes this mechanism as fragmented appropriation. Specifically, the high-intensity labor represented by gan(肝) is institutionalized and transformed into stable forms of overwork, while dimensions such as creative passion and gamer identity are suppressed. In response, developers adopt various coping strategies: some seek promotion in pursuit of more creative work, while others channel their creative passion into side projects, gradually withdrawing emotional investment from their daily labor. While existing research tends to treat subjectivity as a resource that can be mobilized as a whole, this article emphasizes the complexity and multidimensionality of subjectivity. It introduces the concept of fragmented appropriation to capture a mechanism that operates on distinct dimensions of subjectivity, distinguishing it from approaches that treat subjectivity as a unified whole. In doing so, this article reveals the operational logic, practical processes, and consequences of this mechanism, thereby advancing theoretical discussions on the interaction between labor subjectivity and labor control in creative labor research.
This paper analyzes and discusses Dewey's curriculum reform to specifically reveal the substantive content and empirical basis underlying the iconic concept of "social control" in American social theory. In his dialogues with progressive educators, Dewey explicitly opposed the notion of "individual freedom without social control" and advocated instead for "individual freedom within social control". This viewpoint was concretely manifested through the curriculum reform of the Laboratory School. In the field of education, social control refers to teachers guiding students to immerse themselves in the "situations" presented by the curriculum through the implementation of curriculum plans and the use of teaching materials, so that students can perceive the guidance and control of social forces in terms of their behaviors, ideas and emotions. Applying an analytical framework that examines the interaction between "action" and "environment" further illuminates the theoretical implications of social control. On the one hand, Dewey engaged with Rousseau's theory of natural education, arguing that individual actions are inevitably controlled by the social environment, and the traditions of civilization hold indelible educational significance. On the other hand, he opposed Durkheimian social education, maintaining that social control that truly fulfills its educational function cannot be separated from individuals' internal responses, and arguing that activating individuals' behavioral states through the "stimulus-response" mechanism constitutes a more important educational end. Overall, Dewey sought to use the concept of social control to describe a state of life where individuals wholeheartedly "act" in an "environment" with inherent meaning, and on this basis, to reconceptualize the relationship between individual freedom and civilizations. Dewey's concept of social control shaped the problem awareness of early American social theory and is intrinsically consistent with the connotation of "the pedagogical power"(教化权力) as expounded by Hsiao-Tung Fei. Clarifying this connection will help us reflect on the complex relationship between individual freedom and civilized traditions, and inspires actions based on sound judgment.
The reform of China's state-owned enterprises during the 1990s resulted in large numbers of workers being laid off, giving rise to a phenomenon of "new urban poverty" primarily affecting laid-off workers and their families. In response, the Chinese government immediately moved to vigorously expand the urban social security system. Existing studies have mainly focused on the poverty reduction effects of social security policies on the generation of laid-off workers (the parent generation), while paying insufficient attention to their impact on the growth and developmental outcomes of the offspring generation, particularly with regard to the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Against this backdrop, this study uses data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey(1989-2015) to examine the intergenerational poverty reduction effects of social security policies on laid-off families. The findings indicate that pension insurance policies within the social security system do not exhibit significant intergenerational poverty reduction effects. In contrast, medical insurance, as well as cash transfer programs such as social assistance and social welfare, can enhance the intergenerational investment capacity of impoverished laid-off families. Specifically, these policies mitigate the intergenerational transmission of poverty by exerting a buffering effect through pathways of investment in family upbringing and a developmental effect through pathways of school education investment. Furthermore, the effectiveness of such interventions is moderated by parental cultural capital. That is, the policy effects of social security policies in promoting intergenerational investment are more pronounced in families with higher levels of parental cultural capital. In addition, the impact of social security policies on the intergenerational transmission of poverty among laid-off families varies. The intergenerational poverty reduction effects are more evident among families where the mother was laid off, those laid off before 2004, and those in central China. Accordingly, future research and policy practice should pay closer attention to the interaction between policy interventions and family dynamics, with an emphasis on stimulating the internal motivation of impoverished families, thereby better leveraging the intergenerational poverty reduction effects of external policy interventions.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, confronted with the dual crises of religious turmoil within traditional society and the impact of Christianity, the Chinese literati widely engaged in attempts to rebuild society and rectify public morality through religious means. This paper takes the late-Qing "Sun Religion" (Taiyang Jiao) in Wenzhou as a case study to examine the specific forms and historical significance of this intellectual and activist trend.Research reveals that, following the Tongzhi and Guangxu reigns, the local literati hierarchy in Wenzhou collapsed amid the decline of the examination system, the rise of minor lineages, and the spread of extravagant commercial customs. Lower-stratum literati such as Jin Hui and Liu Shaokuan, drawing upon Yan-Li teachings, Buddhist and Daoist ideas and modern theories of electricity, organized the "Sun Religion" as a literati religious group. Their aim was to re-examine the proper role of the literati and to offer a practical path for popular moral enlightenment. On the one hand, the group maintained an ascetic lifestyle by cultivating themselves through daily practices and returning to ancient rites, disciplining their body and mind while striving to preserve moral autonomy amidst everyday social interactions and the corrupting influence of prevailing customs. On the other hand, the doctrines of the "Sun Religion" expounded a "moral-physical law" that linked all sentient beings with the cosmos. This law regarded the mutual attraction and repulsion of yin and yang electricity as the origin of all phenomena, affirmed the power of individual perceptual consciousness and moral transcendence, and thereby established a spiritual bond of shared suffering and unity with all things.This religious yearning to elevate the inner will to infinite heights forged a universal personality that embodied both religious transcendence and modern gezhi (scientific) inquiry. Although it stood in tension with local social sentiments, it served as the spiritual wellspring for the "hequn lihui" (uniting groups and establishing associations) political organizations of the first half of the twentieth century, foreshadowing the radical ethos of lower-stratum intellectuals who sought to transform society through voluntarism. The paper further argues that this practice builds upon the tradition of the religionization of Confucianism in the late-Ming and the formation of the literati-religious societies in the mid-Qing period. Within the broader intellectual currents and regional social structures, this study reveals the intrinsic roots of modern Chinese intellectuals' personality and spiritual state: rejecting the "reality" of the material world before their eyes, they turned instead to an abstract spiritual community as their foundation, thereby embarking on a radical path from self-cultivation to the pursuit of sainthood of social transformation.
Taking the transformation of house property in a lineage-based Hakka village in South China as a case study, this paper explores how house co-ownership has persisted as a stable form of property tenure, rather than as a pre-modern relic on the path to "private ownership." The study finds that the ancestral hall-residence (ciwu) system in the case village constitutes the material ontology of lineage society and the spatiotemporal structure of communal property ownership. The systematic correspondence between the lineage branch (fang) system and the building system shapes a hierarchical order of property co-ownership. The integration of ancestral hall and residence accommodates both ritual and residential functions through a spatial layout characterised by a central axis symmetry and a courtyard complex. Inheritance practices that maintain unity amid division-such as cross-allocation and communal use-have enabled the long-term coexistence of property co-ownership and individual possession. The Land Reform of the 1950s dismantled lineage organizations and lineage communal property, redistributing many landlord properties to poor and lower-middle peasants with formal title registration. However, since the Reform and Opening-up in the 1980s, accompanied by the revival of ancestral worship practices, these households have gradually sold the properties back to the descendants of the original landlord families, leading to a reversion of house property toward the traditional logic of lineage and family co-ownership. Comparative case analysis reveals that the combination of "actual possession" (physical control) by descendants of the original landlord families and "virtual possession"(symbolic presence) by ancestors in the ancestral hall constitutes the crucial mechanism for reclaiming ancestral property and serves as an anchor for the restoration of co-ownership. Only when the integration of hall and residence is achieved-that is, when property co-owners simultaneously constitute a worship community aligned with the lineage structure-can a sense of complete ownership be attained, thereby ensuring the continuity of possession and the consolidation of ownership. This finding challenges the linear presumption of "possession leads to private ownership" in Western jurisprudence, demonstrating instead that possession can function as a precursor to communal ownership rather than privatization. The study suggests that understanding rural property rights in China requires attention to the ontological value of housing, and that modern property institutions may accommodate traditional co-ownership wisdom at the legal level.
The classical sociology of profession typically presupposes that a monopoly on professional knowledge automatically confers authority and naturally leads to public compliance. However, in today's increasingly complex emerging professional landscape, the "correctness" of epistemic rationality is often insufficient to directly translate into a "permission to act" needed to advance professional practice. When professional judgment encounters emotional resistance or value questioning, the static authoritative logic reveals its lack of explanatory power. In response to this theoretical dilemma, this paper takes Chinese pet healthcare industry as an empirical case study. The sector is profoundly shaped by the structural tension between "market force moving ahead and institutional frameworks lagging behind". Furthermore, the emotional economy has redefined pets as "quasi-family member, " significantly increasing the emotional engagement in veterinary interactions. In light of this dilemma, this paper introduces the analytical concept of "Translational Labor", arguing that professional practitioners must engage in continuous, two-way encoding of meaning in clinical practice. On the one hand, professional language is encoded into ethical values that align with the audience's framework through forward translation, thereby securing the legitimacy of action. On the other hand, through reverse translation, the overflowing emotional appeals are transformed into institutionalized contractual expressions, thereby defining the boundaries of risk. Based on qualitative field research, this paper further identifies three types of translation strategies in clinical interactions: cognitive translation, identity-based translation and emotional-ethical translation. The structural configuration of different organizational forms also profoundly shapes the preferences for these translation strategies. At the same time, faced with the inherent contradiction between forward and reverse translation, practitioners have developed a form of "strategic sincerity" that both fosters consensus and prevents themselves from suffering emotional fatigue. This paper argues that the battleground of modern professional jurisdiction is shifting from the simple monopoly of knowledge to the production of meaning and emotion.
Amidst a trust crisis in institutional childcare, digital media technologies are increasingly deployed as a means of communication between family and educational institution, making"visibility" a key aspect of early childhood educators' work environment. Drawing on the theoretical perspective of professional autonomy, this paper examines the impact of visibility on teachers' professional practice. The study finds that, ECEC institutions adopt different modes of visibility based on their positions in the market, aiming to meet parents' demands for information access and remote care via media representation. However, such practices pose new challenges to the professional autonomy of early childhood educators. This is not only because media technologies have made the process of caregiving more visible to parents, but also, more fundamentally, because there is a mismatch between the nature of media representation and the logic of caregiving. And thus, its open-ended interpretations likely lead to conflicts between teachers and parents.Faced with the possibility that their work might be scrutinised, judged, or even interfered with, preschool teachers attempt to regain control over their work through three strategies: information control, relationship management, and conditional resistance. Meanwhile, the pursuit of visibility has led to unintended and paradoxical consequences for teachers: meeting the visibility demands, addressing the challenges it poses, and taking strategic actions to safeguard professional autonomy, have all become an integral part of their professional practice, thereby reducing the attentiveness and positive emotional engagement required for high-quality care and education.On the practical level, this study focuses and reflects on the impact of technology on teacher-child interactions and early childhood development; on the theoretical level, it proposes an analytical framework of "negotiated professional autonomy", advocating for an inquiry that is grounded in micro-level workplaces to explore how practitioners strive to gain control over professional matters through multi-agent interactions and everyday work practices, thereby expanding the scope of the sociological analysis of diverse occupations.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly entering palliative care and social work, yet bringing technology into care does not necessarily mean that it becomes part of care. Existing studies have largely followed two lines of inquiry. One highlights the potential of AI to improve efficiency, prediction, and service delivery, while the other focuses on ethical concerns such as surveillance, algorithmic bias, and dehumanization. More recent work in Science and Technology Studies (STS) has moved beyond this opposition by treating AI as a socio-technical actor involved in human-technology relations. Even so, relatively little attention has been paid to how AI becomes embedded in everyday care practice and how human-AI coexistence is gradually produced through interaction, negotiation, and organizational adaptation, particularly in emotionally demanding and ethically sensitive settings such as palliative care.This article examines these questions through an AI-enabled palliative care social work intervention undertaken in a tertiary hospital in China. Rather than evaluating whether AI improves care outcomes, the study focuses on the practical processes through which AI is incorporated into care relationships. Qualitative inquiry was embedded within the intervention evaluation and drew on interviews with patients, family caregivers, social workers, healthcare professionals, and AI developers, together with participant observation, system interaction records, and field notes. This research design made it possible to follow AI as it moved through everyday practice and to examine how its role was continuously shaped by different actors.The findings suggest that AI does not enter care as a stable or predetermined technological actor. Instead, its place within palliative care is progressively established through ongoing adjustments to local contexts, emotional exchanges, and ethical deliberation. As AI is adapted to existing routines, communication styles, and professional practices, it gradually shifts from a digital tool to a participant in care relationships. At the same time, emotional support becomes reorganized rather than automated. AI helps sustain communication, encourages emotional expression, and extends opportunities for interaction, while social workers remain responsible for interpretation, relationship building, and professional judgement. Ethical responsibility also emerges as a negotiated accomplishment. Decisions about risk, intervention, and accountability continue to rely on professional deliberation, with AI functioning as a source of support rather than an autonomous decision-maker.Based on these empirical observations, the article develops a framework of adaptation—senti-modulation—co-governance framework to explain the making of human-AI coexistence in palliative care social work. The framework argues that coexistence should not be understood simply as collaboration between humans and technology. Rather, it is a socially situated process through which AI acquires presence, relational significance, and legitimacy in practice. By shifting attention from technological capability to the social conditions that make coexistence possible, this study contributes to sociological debates on digital care, extends STS discussions of human-AI relations, and offers an empirically grounded account of how AI is domesticated, negotiated, and governed within contemporary care practices.
Studies on disaster memory has largely focused on narrative construction, often at the expense of the experiential reality of disaster itself. As memory becomes increasingly mediated through discourse, its material grounding is obscured, leading to processes of erosion and attenuation. In response, this study advances an analytical perspective that re-centers the materiality of meaning, seeking to bring the tangible foundations of memory back. This study examines a private museum dedicated to commemorating the Wenchuan earthquake, focusing on how its practices transform local, mundane objects into carriers of national and collective remembrance. Drawing on the Strong Program in cultural sociology, particularly the "icon theory", the analysis develops an "authentic and aesthetic" framework to investigate how disaster artifacts acquire iconic power through the interplay between their material appearances and their deeper meanings. The findings show that by directly incorporating everyday objects from disaster-stricken areas into their exhibitions, museums, on the one hand, restore the symbolic meanings of disaster memory to the complexity and reality of everyday life. On the other hand, the destruction and trauma captured in material form give rise to aesthetic experiences imbued with moral significance. In this way, exhibited objects preserve the experiential texture of disaster while becoming materially grounded "totems" that crystallize collective consciousness. More broadly, this study argues that the durability of collective memory depends on material forms capable of directly embodying moral sentiments, rather than on fluid discursive narratives alone. By foregrounding materiality, it shows how local commemorative practices supplement dominant narrative frameworks through irreducible material experience, thereby sustaining collective disaster memory.
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