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Table of Content

    20 July 2019, Volume 39 Issue 4
    Who is in the Center of the Stage? Public Sentiment and Politics in Xiangsheng
    MENG Qingyan
    2019, 39(4):  1-34. 
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    Xiangsheng (crosstalk) is a traditional performing art that can be traced back well over 100 years. Through its long history, Xiangsheng has developed a set of unique performance style and a distinctive internal structure of scripts. Performers also formed their own unique artistic genres. Xiangsheng evolved gradually from street performance to stage art. Its performance format, script structure and skit style made constant adjustments in response to the changing social conditions. Xiangsheng as performance art reflects both aspects of politics and public sentiment, and state and society. In this paper, the author attempts to explain the origin, attributes and structural characteristics of Xiangsheng by using various materials of skits, local history, and personal memoirs. Through the lense of sociology and interpretive anthropology, comparison and analysis of classical works from different periods are presented through two standpoints:1) the multiple structure of Xiangsheng skits and meanings as social commentaries; and 2) the historical process of Xiangsheng evolving from low-class street folk performance to popular stage art form. The discussion reveals the social and political logic behind the evolution of Xiangsheng, and how public sentiment and politics are echoed in popular skits. Furthermore, the sociological interpretation of comic dialogues exposes the unique relationship among the state, market and society, and its practical presence in modern China.

    Between a Mountain Temple and a Mountain Foot Community: Social Configuration through Qingshui Master Procession Rituals
    LUO Yang
    2019, 39(4):  35-60. 
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    This article is a field study examining the relationship between a Penglai mountain temple and its mountain foot community in Penglai Town, Anxi County, Fujian Province. The analysis focuses on the ritual of Qingshui Master Procession (qingshui zushi xunjing). It is argued that the Qingshuiyan Temple connects with both the secular world on the plain and the spiritual world in the mountain. The lowland community cannot be self-sustained without mountain deities and trade of goods between the Temple and the community. As a focal point of communal activities, the Qingshui Master Procession ritual facilitates the formation of communities on the surrounding plain, generates an orderly rhythm of everyday life, as well as promotes community renewal in regular intervals. This ritual thus provides an indispensable means through which group differentiation and cohesion play out. The Qingshuiyan Temple itself serves as a channel for people to communicate with the spiritual world, bestowing a sense of sacredness to the people, objects, and communities on the plain. The Temple's centrality in local life rests on, not so much its physical location in the middle way of the mountain, but its intermediary role between lowland (secular) and mountain (spiritual), not an uncommon feature in the region of Anxi county. Traditional mountain dwellers like scholars, monks and Taoist priests such as Qingshui Master, are regarded by people in Anxi as "sacred people" (zhenren). They move between the human and spiritual worlds freely, blending nature and society. The Qingshuiyan Temple mirrors the social fabrics of Anxi society and its people's conceptualization of humankind.

    The Game of Popularity: Earning System and Labor Control in Live Streaming Industry
    XU Linfeng, ZHANG Hengyu
    2019, 39(4):  61-83. 
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    The case study in this paper is a street band in Wuhan with its full members under live streamers contract. Borrowing from Michael Burawoy's concept of "the game of making out",this study describes the labor control mechanism in the live streaming industry as "the game of popularity". Popularity as a pivotal indicator of labor price decides the compensation of contracted live streamers. However,this seemingly objective popularity indicator can be in fact manipulated. Both live streamers and platform providers can benefit from fake popularity. In the game of popularity manipulation,the interests of capital and labor are joined,and consensus reached. In collaboration,live streamers become conspirators of the capital and thus lose control of their own labor,and distort the relation between labor input and compensation. By participating in manipulation,live streamers help affirm the ideological domination of platform economy. Neoliberal work ethic that emphasizes individual responsibility conceals the power relationship behind unstable employment like live stream. Despite being horrendously exploited,live streamers still think themselves as someone with "independent destiny". Online platform economy has transformed the labor-capital relationship. The earning distribution system,in combination with other social factors,often plays a vital role in labor control. Therefore,understanding the system and its influence on labor process and ideology is the right way to start for any exploration of concepts such as "industry regime" or "sector regime".

    Hope and Anxiety: The Study of Female Embodied Experience with ARTs
    YU Chengpu, LI Wanlin, DENG Mingfen
    2019, 39(4):  84-115. 
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    Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) are hailed as "the gospel" to infertile patients in mainstream narrative. The existing literature mostly adopts the perspective of technology and social interaction, and often views the restrictions and constraints of social and cultural contexts on ARTs from a static and macroscopic perspective, ignoring the recipients of the technologies, especially the experience of women. This paper regards embodiment as the methodological orientation. It opposes both social and cultural determinism and biological determinism. Instead, it emphasizes the biological and experiential nature of the body while linking it to the external context, thus frees itself from the dilemma of bio-cultural dualism. It also avoids the neglect of social situations and the indifference to physical creativity and variability. Based on the investigation in Z hospital's reproductive center, the paper shows the three moral pressures of infertility, assisted reproduction and national policy faced by infertile patients, and the uncertainty of ARTs puts them in a more intense world of anxiety and hope. That is to say, ARTs in practice are far from simple "hope technology", instead, they throw women into the paradoxical world where hope and anxiety coexist. As embodied experience, anxiety and hope are transmitted through the body of women, which show the inscription of social-cultural context and technical uncertainty on the female body; meanwhile, women actively learn strategies to cope with the technical uncertainty and moral pressure from local culture (including recuperating the body, folk religion, etc.), so as to hold on infertility treatment with hope.

    Economy in a Substantive Sense: Anti-Utilitarianism Economic Anthropology as Seen from The Gift and The Great Transformation
    YU Xin
    2019, 39(4):  116-152. 
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    Economic anthropology as seen from Mauss's The Gift and Polanyi's The Great Transformation provides inspirations for thinking about the current situation of the world. However, the discussion and interpretation of both works by English and American intellectuals in the 20th century deviate from the real intention of the authors and largely ignore the interconnection between these writings and the authors. Through a careful analysis of this interconnection, this study suggests that:1) Both Mauss and Polanyi oppose to the formalist economic model based on utilitarianism, and the contrasts of gifts and commodities, as well as the utopian dreams of liberalism and communism. 2) A careful reading of Mauss's and Polanyi's writings also indicates that both authors tend to see private property, market and money as formal means of social substance, i.e means of expression and organization of the substantial inter-exchange existed within society and frame of mind. Moreover, they regarded empirical studies of money, wealth and market as ways to approach the theoretical holism of society. By contrast, modern economic thought reverses the cause-effect sequence by making an independent economic sphere under the formalist model and a natural individual as the foundation of society. 3) Mauss and Polanyi complemented each other on their studies of the birth of modern society and individuals. 4) Polanyi's double movement, fiction commodity and embedment, along with Mauss's total presentation have to be understood in relation to their discussion on holism and substance of society.
    Mauss and Polanyi have broadened our understanding of individual and society, as well as of individual freedom and market. In their view, studies of people in their real and everyday life should be the starting point of economic anthropology. In this respect, The Gift and The Great Transformation give us an alternative and pluralistic way of explaining economy in a holistic society, together they lay the foundation of economic anthropology based on substantivism.

    The Life-course of Phenomenological Sociology
    LUO Chaoming
    2019, 39(4):  153-185. 
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    Phenomenology is a philosophical thought originated in Europe. The common problems of the day brought by Weber's so-called "the disenchantment of the world" made phenomenology a widely influential force on various empirical sciences. Though the blend of phenomenology and sociology initially brought about a variety of potential approaches, for a long-time phenomenological sociology is simply regarded as a synonym for Alfred Shutz's works. This narrow interpretation not only generated a misunderstanding of phenomenological sociology, but also obscured the historical facts of its development, and possibly hindered the exploration of other potential approaches of phenomenological sociology. In this paper, the birth of phenomenological sociology will be placed in the context of the Phenomenological Movement, and the various possible approaches implied at the beginning of phenomenological sociology will be explained. By focusing on the Husserl-Schutzian approach, the apparent paradigm of phenomenological sociology, this paper outlines the life-course of the Husserl-Schutzian phenomenological sociology from its occurrence in Europe to its development, decline and aftermath in North America. Although the history of the Husserl-Schutzian approach in North America is the focus here, the paper also discusses the inherent possibility of exploring other potential approaches of phenomenological sociology, and to some extent, points to the possible direction such exploration might lead. It is hoped that this study will stimulate comparative study of phenomenological sociology in Europe and the United States, inspire exploration of other possible approaches, and thus help enhance our understanding of phenomenological sociology.

    Job Mobility and Its Income Effects under System Segmentation in Urban China
    ZHOU Yang, XIE Yu
    2019, 39(4):  186-209. 
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    Analyzing longitudinal data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS 2010 and 2012) from a dynamic process perspective, this paper systematically discusses job mobility patterns and their economic consequences in China's dual system segmentation labor market. We propose that the system segmentation becomes an important collective mechanism shaping mobility opportunity structure and rising economic inequality in the labor market. The system has three effects on job mobility:1) Stability effect:The system provides internal protection for its members; job shifts are less likely to occur inside the system than outside the system. 2) Income effect:Job changers gain higher income growth in the system than outside the system. 3) Entrenchment effect:The system becomes an invisible boundary and hinders entry into the system. These three effects of the system segmentation on job mobility are significant and robust, even after we consider selectivity. This paper combines system segmentation and workflow processes to explore the dynamic effect of the system on the labor market structure, which helps to better understand the stratification in China's current labor market.

    Why It Is Hard for Welfare Recipients to Exit Welfare? A Dynamic Study on Welfare Exit Pattern and Its Changing Tendency
    XIAO Meng, CHEN Honglin, LI Feiyue
    2019, 39(4):  210-240. 
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    Based on data from "Evaluation on Chinese Urban and Rural Low-income Household Support System(2014)", this paper uses the event history analysis method to explore the duration of welfare (dibao) and factors affecting dibao exit in the urban area. The study finds that welfare recipients commonly stay in welfare for long-term,however, it is not because of the "negative time dependence" or declining work motivation as claimed by the "time dependency hypothesis". On the contrary, the longer recipients remain in welfare, the likelihood ofexit increases, indicating that low exit rate is not caused by low work motivation. Further analysis shows that the low-income population suffers from labor capital deficiency and lacks employment assistance service, the two main determining factors leading to long-term welfare dependency. Furthermore, off-book informal employment constitutes an important barrier to dibao exit, even thoughits impact has been declining over the time.
    Several policy implications can be drawn from this study:Firstly, in tackling the issue of labor capital deficiency, a comprehensive growth-oriented welfare system should be developed; Secondly, the central government should increase its funding to ensure that local agencies have sufficient funds for employment assistance projects; Finally, the government should strengthen multi-sector information sharing mechanism and enhance the professionalization of means-tested eligibility to deal with off-book informal employment, and more importantly, change the Chinese employment structure by creating moreformal employment.