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    20 May 2019, Volume 39 Issue 3
    The Ambit of Flourishing Peace: Kang Youwei's Perspective of Eurasian Civilizations as Seen in The Travelogue of Italy
    WANG Mingming
    2019, 39(3):  1-56. 
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    In the middle of 1904, the renown Chinese thinker and reformer Kang Youwei made his "journey to the West". In Italy, the first of the 11 European countries he visited, Kang inspected the historical relics, political institutions, and local customs. Taking the opportunity of "being there", he made an on-the-spot inquiry into the age-old Roman civilization. He also compared the Western way with the "Continental" Chinese way of being political and civilized. Near the end of 1904, Kang compiled his diaries, poems, and notes of the journey into a book entitled The Travelogue of Italy (the first of the series of his Travelogues of 11 European Nations), which is the focus of this study.
    The Travelogue of Italy is treated in this paper as an example from which a major perspective of "civilization" can be reconstructed and re-enacted. To the author, a social anthropologist keenly interested in the political and cosmological perspectives of civilization, Kang's Travelogue of Italy, an old-style "ethnographic" text in which a pattern of "civilizational modernity" (in contrast with "national modernity") is inscribed, proves to be one of the most fascinating achievements of late period traditional Chinese "gazettes of foreign countries".
    This paper offers the following four parts of discussion:(1)a synoptic biography of Kang's life with a specific focus on his political thinking during the epoch of transition;(2)a mapping of Kang's voyage from the East to the West; (3)an overview of Kang's interpretation of the civilizational differences between Roman empire and the Han "All-under-Heaven" as presented in the travelogue; (4) an analysis of Kang's viewpoints of the relation between European and Asian civilizations. In the introductory and concluding sections, the author presents his views on the relevance of Kang Youwei's perspectives to the critique of post-traditional Chinese "nation-building" social sciences.
    The paper serves as a sequel to the author's extended essay on the re-conceptualization of "civilization" by Kang Youwei's European contemporary Émile Durkheim (and his inheritor Marcel Mauss). Interwoven throughout the discussion are comparative points between King and Durkheim. It is suggested that both men define "civilizations" in terms of "supral-societal" or "supra-national" systems. Nonetheless, unlike Durkheim, who remained deeply concerned with improving the life of the nation, Kang was inclined to conceptualize such systems in terms of the "ambit of flourishing peace" (shengping shi), a dynamic state of human political existence between the age of violent chaos and that of the Great Unity.

    NGO Global,Volunteerism Local: An Exploration of Moral Anthropology
    FANG Hongxin
    2019, 39(3):  57-92. 
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    This paper is an exploratory research of moral anthropology focused on the local practices of global NGOs. For over more than 10 years, Ruili Women and Children Development Center (the Center) in southwest border of China has developed itself into a NGO that adopts international practices and fosters a spirit of grassroots volunteer dedication. In this paper, two anthropologists' analytic framework of morality will be examined and the author's view on morality/ethics based on the above case study will be discussed in three aspects:morality as norm, morality as good deeds, and ethics as effect of life itself. The Center came into existence in response to the decline and uncertainty of local morality norm. Under such a condition, the Center alliances itself with the transnational global humanitarian ideas and practices to provide the much needed medical care for the sick in the region. In the process, the Center, mainly made of female members, has created a viable organization that is in tune with global NGO humanitarian concepts and practices and an army of devoted volunteers, especially among the HIV infected women, who have found new meanings and ethics in life. This study hopes to broaden our theoretical and experiential understanding of NGOs, and of how to meet the societal needs at the times of social change.

    Enterprising and Lost: Professional Lives for Programmer -Interns
    WANG Chengwei, YANG Kunyun
    2019, 39(3):  93-122. 
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    Internship is a typical precarious job. Among all interns, however, programmer interns distinct themselves as a group that often performs the same tasks as formal employees at the junior programmer level but endures much higher work pressure and much lower pay. Even as many in the group are at the age close to the so-called "35 years old crisis point," a long-term internship is still seen as the only right track for professional career development. Drawing on Burawoy's (1979) concept of the game of "making out", this study explores the construction of subjectivity in precarious jobs by looking into the manufacturing of consent of programmer-interns in a takeout delivery service company. Programmer-interns became accustomed to identify themselves with a particular type of quantifiable labor product, for instance, the "post-it" on the whiteboard in a "stand-up meeting", or the "T-levels" (technology levels) that, according to the internet industry, is the "gateway" for professional career development. Programmer-interns seem to believe that rather than secondary education, or state-owned enterprises, or multi-national enterprises, only domestic internet companies can help them to complete their enterprising-selves. Even though supervisor-intern relationship and gender game of masculinity expression constitute part of programmer-interns' enterprising-self game, the essence of the game has never been challenged and in some ways is only being reenforced. That essence is the continuous step up of T-levels. However, for the majority of programmer-interns, the outcome of the game is the loss of self as they are trapped in an endless cycle of step-up. As if by improving their labor value as skilled workers, programmer-interns are simultaneously closing off other windows of opportunity of winning the enterprising-self game.

    Labor Export,Transnational Production Politics and the Formation of Exploitation Relationship-A Case Study of Chinese Workers in Japan
    LIU Xinghua, WANG Yong
    2019, 39(3):  123-153. 
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    In the context of globalization,labor export from developing countries to developed countries has shaped a relationship of exploitation between employers and employees. This study presents the case of Chinese migrant workers' overtime pay in Japan and explores the formation mechanism of the exploitation using the analytic framework of "transnational production politics". Transnational migrant workers often see overtime as an indispensable opportunity to generate extra income to support families back home. This need is being taken advantage of by employers who habitually reduce overtime pay or not pay at all. Overtime pay often becomes a focal point of labor conflict. Because of the limited protection for migrant workers in the labor law of the host countries,the rights granted to employers by the foreign labor system,the competition from migrant workers of other nationalities and the selective asylum policy provided by transnational intermediaries,Chinese migrants suffer a dilemma of either surrendering to the low overtime pay or loosing overtime work,or even their job all together. Whether to resist or surrender,it seems that the outcome is all the same for migrant workers:they lose and employers win. This transnational production polity exercises its "market authoritarian". Elements such as constraints of the foreign labor system,loopholes in the system used by the employer,global surplus labors and separation of maintenance and renewal process in labor reproduction mode,reflect the transnational production politics peculiar to international contract labor mobility. It becomes an important mechanism for the re-emergence of the forced exploitation of capital in developed capitalist countries. Unlike the exploitative relationship between local workers and employers in developed countries,the exploitation between migrant workers and employers is born out of the imbalanced development between countries. Migrant workers not only have no protection of the host country's welfare system,but also are controlled by strict laws regarding foreign labor,and threatened by competition from other migrant workers. All this has put employers in a strong advantageous position in conflict.

    Foucault in Syracuse: The Subjective Practice in the Political Spirituality
    ZHU Wencheng
    2019, 39(3):  154-182. 
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    "Back from Syracuse?" is a phrase used to satirize an intellectual who unwisely intervenes in political issues. Foucault received multiple denunciations and attacks for his interest in the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1978. Foucault's fascination with the Iranian Revolution is rooted in his inspiration of the political spirituality manifested in the Revolution, which in his words, is a "negleted possibility" in the West that "we have forgotten since the Renaissance and the great crisis of Christianity". This paper examines the essays and interviews by Foucault during the year of 1978 and afterwards to illustrate that however prima facie it might be, Foucault's approval of political spirituality should not be seen as a "mistake" since it is a reflection of his work on the forms of subjective practices of individuals at the time and subsequently a main topic of his life work. Political Spirituality exhibits two aspects:an outburst of enormous collective will and a force transcending secularity. To Foucault, these two things are powerful weapons to resist against the rational regime of politics in Western societies. Foucault's open-mindedness to multi-cultural phenomena also contributed to his interest of the Revolution. It is suggested here that Foucault's reading on the Iranian Revolution influenced his change of interest from bio-politics in political sphere to technologies of the self in ethical sphere. His work on the forms of subjective practices follows the same pattern as his work on the Iranian Revolution, starting from how individuals change their forms of subjectivity in modernity. Foucault is not always right, but his insights on political spirituality and his claims on Parrhesia from the Stoic remain valuable to this day, for at the very least, they provide an invaluable perspective, if not better, in the sphere of public political discourse.

    Explaining One Subjective Variable with Another: A Methodological Clarification
    HU Anning
    2019, 39(3):  183-209. 
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    Sociological studies have rich subjective variables such as attitudes, perceptions, and preferences, and explanations of this type of variables often call for some more subjective variables. Empirical sociologists often have concerns about this approach of "subjective variable explaining subjective variable" in their empirical studies. Thus far, it is still not clear what kind of shortcomings the approach of "subjective variable explaining subjective variable" has, and more importantly, how to handle these concerns in order to enhance empirical explanations. Against this background, this study investigates the potential confounding bias in the "subjective variable explaining subjective variable" approach, and presents three strategies of theoretical reasoning, variable measurement, and data analysis in dealing with the issues. For each strategy, this article provides examples and discusses its advantages and limitations. Some unsolved issues, such as the direction of causation, the sensitivity analysis, and the measurement error, are also explored here. This study intends to bring in more diversity of sociological approaches and enhance the interdis-ciplinary collaboration (e.g., with psychology and political sciences).

    The Fission of Revolutionary Purpose and the Transformation of the Mass Line: Moderation of Women's Policies of the CCP in the 1940s
    CHENG Wenxia, LI Hui
    2019, 39(3):  210-240. 
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    As a Marxist revolutionary party,the CCP advocated gender equality,however,in the 1940s,its radical gender policies came under moderation. During the Soviet period,female emanciption was a powerful means of mobilizing women to participate in the land reform. The Anti-Communist "Encirclement and Suppression" had caused a significent number of male casualty and had drained male laborers from the land. This reality forced the CCP to focus on mobilizing females to step in males' role in production. At the same time,the intensified class conflict took the primacy over the gender equality issues arisen from the radical policies. As soon as the Sino-Japanese War started the CCP suspended the land reform,thus the radical gender policies had lost its practical foundation and the relationship between the Party and the masses had altered structurally.Because of the pressure to seize the resources for the War,the principle goal of the CCP shifted from liberation to draft of army recruits. The relationship between the Party and the peasants changed from coorperative to tense. Although the gender equality policies were shelved,the path dependence persisted. Only by the middle period of the War when the CCP modified its mass line as non-class struggle and production output focused to counter the KMT's "xiangong" (Restricting the CCP),the path dependency of gender equality was broken and moderated as the period had brought back the traditional gender difference and gender division of labor. The softening of the policies on women rebalanced the central goalsand principle objectives of the revolution,and compensated the preference of males and the physiological characteristics of female.