Urbanisation in Between

This article focuses on the lived experiences of people who have moved to Zouping, a rapidly urbanising city in Shandong Province. It argues that the variety of their experiences reveals much about Chinese processes of urbanisation. Recent writing on Chinese urbanisation often portrays a sharp social break with rural experience. This article discusses the variable degrees of continuity with rural pasts that different groups of new urbanites experience. It presents Zouping as an intermediate case of Chinese urbanisation, illustrating aspects of both migrant and in situ development, and also argues for the importance of attention to divergent examples of lived experiences, which often blend or transcend the ideal types presented in models of urban experience

Urbanisation in Between

This article focuses on the lived experiences of people who have moved to Zouping, a rapidly urbanising city in Shandong Province. It argues that the variety of their experiences reveals much about Chinese processes of urbanisation. Recent writing on Chinese urbanisation often portrays a sharp social break with rural experience. This article discusses the variable degrees of continuity with rural pasts that different groups of new urbanites experience. It presents Zouping as an intermediate case of Chinese urbanisation, illustrating aspects of both migrant and in situ development, and also argues for the importance of attention to divergent examples of lived experiences, which often blend or transcend the ideal types presented in models of urban experience

Une urbanisation intermédiaire

Cet article s’intéresse aux expériences vécues par des personnes qui ont emménagé à Zouping, une ville soumise à un phénomène d’urbanisation rapide dans la province du Shandong. Il développe la thèse selon laquelle les différentes expériences décrites symbolisent les multiples processus d’urbanisation qui ont cours dans la Chine contemporaine. Les écrits récents sur l’urbanisation chinoise rendent souvent compte d’une rupture sociale profonde avec le mode de vie rural. Cet article analyse les degrés de continuité que ressentent les différents groupes de nouveaux urbains avec leur passé rural. Il présente Zouping comme un cas intermédiaire de l’urbanisation chinoise, caractérisé par un développement local et un afflux de migrants extérieurs, et souligne la nécessité de prendre en compte les divergences qui existent entre les expériences vécues, nuançant ainsi ou dépassant les idéaux types présentés dans les modèles de l’expérience urbaine

Consumer ethnicity three decades after: a TCR agenda

Research into consumer ethnicity is a vital discipline that has substantially evolved in the past three decades. This conceptual article critically reviews its immense literature and examines the extent to which it has provided extensive contributions not only for the understanding of ethnicity in the marketplace but also for personal/collective well-being. We identify two gaps accounting for scant transformative contributions. First, today social transformations and conceptual sophistications require a revised vocabulary to provide adequate interpretive lenses. Second, extant work has mostly addressed the subjective level of ethnic identity projects but left untended the meso/macro forces affecting ethnicity (de)construction and personal/collective well-being. Our contribution stems from filling both gaps and providing a theory of ethnicity (de)construction that includes migrants as well as non-migrants

Introduction: “Overseas ethnography” and the audiences of academic anthropology in China

This essay introduces the translations of two articles by Gao Bingzhong on the topic of “overseas ethnography” in China. In these essays, Gao attempts to create more space for Chinese anthropologists to do ethnographic research outside of China, rather than focusing on research in their own country. Gao provides a liberal defense of the anthropological enterprise while contributing to the literature on world ethnographies. His essays also illuminate the conditions of writing in the official spaces of Chinese academia, and, hence, its problematic distance from other spaces of world anthropology