Governance of Life in Chinese Moral Experience: The Quest for an Adequate Life PDF
Preview Governance of Life in Chinese Moral Experience: The Quest for an Adequate Life
Governance of Life in Chinese Moral Experience China has experienced a tremendous turnaround over the past three decades from the ethos of sacrificing life to the emergent appeal for valuing life. This book takes an interdisciplinary look at these decades of transformation through the defining theme of governance of life. With an emphasis on how to achieve an adequate life, the contributors integrate a whole range of life-related domains including: the death of Sun Zhigang, the peril caused by rising tobacco consumption, the emerg- ing suicide intervention, the turning points in the fight against AIDS, the intensely evolving birth policy, the creation of biological citizenship, and so on. In doing so, they explore how biological life has been governed differently to enhance the wellbeing of the population instead of promoting ideological goals. This change, dubbed “the deepening in governmentality,” is one of the most important driv- ing forces for China’s rise, and will have huge bearings on how the Chinese will achieve an adequate life in the twenty-first century. This book presents works by a number of internationally known scholars and will be of interest to students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, political science, history, Chinese philosophy, law, and public health. Everett Zhang was born in China. He received his Ph.D from the University of California at Berkeley and did postdoctoral studies at Harvard. He is Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of East Asian Studies at Princeton University. Arthur Kleinman is Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University, Professor of Medical Anthropology and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Harvard University Asia Center. Tu Weiming is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Peking University and Research Professor and Senior Fellow of the Harvard University Asia Center. Governance of Life in Chinese Moral Experience The quest for an adequate life Edited by Everett Zhang, Arthur Kleinman, and Tu Weiming First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2011 Editorial selection and matter Everett Zhang, Arthur Kleinman, and Tu Weiming; individual chapters, the contributors. The right of Everett Zhang, Arthur Kleinman, and Tu Weiming to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Governance of life in Chinese moral experience: the quest for an adequate life / edited by Everett Zhang, Arthur Kleinman, and Tu Weiming. p. cm. 1. Quality of life--China. 2. Social values--China. 3. China--Social conditions--1976-2000. 4. China--Social conditions--2000- I. Zhang, Everett. II. Kleinman, Arthur. III. Weiming, Tu. HN734.G68 2011 306.0951’09051--dc22 2010026786 ISBN 0-203-83439-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 978-0-415-59718-0 (hbk) ISBN 978-0-415-59719-7 (pbk) ISBN 978-0-203-83439-8 (ebook) I (Everett Zhang) dedicate this book to my parents Zhang Xianchuang ( ) and Li Xiangju ( ), and to my son Kai ( ). Contents List of figures and tables ix List of contributors x Acknowledgments xii Foreword xiii Introduction: governmentality in China 1 EVERETT ZHANG PART I Min yi shi wei tian (People regard food as top priority) 31 1 Feeding the revolution: public mess halls and coercive commensality in Maoist China 33 JAMES L. WATSON 2 Recalling the Great Leap Famine and recourse to irony 47 STEPHAN FEUCHTWANG 3 The truth about the death toll of the Great Leap Famine in Sichuan: an analysis of Maoist sovereignty 62 EVERETT ZHANG PART II The politics and morality of death 81 4 The death of a detainee: the predicament of status politics in contemporary China and the way out 83 LIANG ZHIPING viii Contents 5 Depoliticizing tobacco’s exceptionality: male sociality, death, and memory making among Chinese cigarette smokers 103 MATTHEW KOHRMAN PART III Governing life 129 6 Memories of the barefoot doctor system 131 YANG NIANQUN 7 Governing Chinese life: from sovereignty to biopolitical governance 146 SUSAN GREENHALGH 8 Turning points in China’s fight against AIDS since 1985 163 JOAN KAUFMAN 9 Governing suicide: an ethnological study of Rural Women’s program of suicide intervention 182 WU FEI PART IV From living being to well-being 197 10 Citizens’ perceptions of adequate governance: satisfaction levels among rural and urban Chinese 199 TONY SAICH 11 Debating women’s rights in Hong Kong: challenges to a colonial category 215 RUBIE S. WATSON 12 Biological citizenship and its forms 237 NIKOLAS ROSE Epilogue 266 TU WEIMING Index 271 Figures and tables Figures 5.1 The front of a pack of Liberation cigarettes from the mid-twentieth century 115 10.1 Percentage of citizens relatively satisfied or extremely satisfied with government 202 10.2 Government performance matrix 209 Tables 9.1 Assessment of the activities of the suicide intervention program in villages 189 10.1 Citizens’ impression of the attitude of local government in executing policy, 2003 and 2009 204 10.2 Comparison of citizens’ attitudes toward government behavior 2003–2009 205 10.3 Respondents’ perception of officials’ concerns when implementing policy, 2003–2009 205 10.4 Government service satisfaction/importance matrix template 208 10.5 Sites chosen for survey 213
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