Producing Guanxi: Sentiment, Self, and Subculture in a North China Village (Comparative and International Working-) - Softcover

Kipnis, Andrew B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822318733 ISBN 13: 9780822318736

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 1997

Synopsis

Throughout China the formation of guanxi, or social connections, involves friends, families, colleagues, and acquaintances in complex networks of social support and sentimental attachment. Focusing on this process in one rural north China village, Fengjia, Andrew Kipnis shows what guanxi production reveals about the evolution of village political economy, kinship and gender, and local patterns of subjectivity in Dengist China. His work offers a detailed description of the communicative actions—such as gift giving, being a host or guest, participating in weddings or funerals—that produce, manage, and deny guanxi in a specific time and place. Kipnis also offers a rare comparative analysis of how these practices relate to the varied and variable phenomenon of guanxi throughout China and as it has changed over time.
Producing Guanxi combines the theory of Pierre Bourdieu and the insights of symbolic anthropology to contest past portrayals of guanxi as either a function of Chinese political economics or an unchanging Confucian social structure. In this analysis guanxi emerges as a purposeful human effort that makes use of past cultural logics while generating new ones. By exploring the role of sentiment in the creation of self, Kipnis critiques recent theories of subjectivity for their narrow focus on language and discourse, and contributes to the anthropological discussion of comparative selfhood. Navigating a path between mainstream social science and abstract social theory, Kipnis presents a more nuanced examination of guanxi than has previously been available and contributes generally to our understanding of relationships and human action.

About this title

Review:

"An elegantly written, conceptually deft, and careful piece of work. I know of no other systematic contemporary attempt to theorize guanxi in a rural context. Kipnis’s theoretically sophisticated involvement with current debates in anthropology will also ensure that this book is of interest to a scholarly audience both within and beyond the China field."— Gail Hershatter, University of California, Santa Cruz

"This is a rich and well-reflected ethnographic text that captures a core feature of both traditional and contemporary Chinese culture. The richness and variety of ethnographic descriptions reveal the author’s meticulous fieldwork and his insightful and thought–provoking observations. This book will help correct the current imbalance towards depicting urban guanxi by examining the roots of guanxi in rural and peasant kinship, ethics, and rituals."—Mayfair Yang, University of California, Santa Barbara

From the Author:

Andrew B. Kipnis teaches at the Contemporary China Centre at Australian National University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0822318733
• ISBN 13: 9780822318736
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248