Two-dimensional people: lives, desires, and social attitudes in a changing Chinese village
In: China perspectives
"Based on almost eight years of fieldwork in a town and a village in South China, this book analyzes contradictions among various dimensions of the rural economy, social relationships, popular religion, and local politics. Compared to many anthropological, sociological, and political studies of rural China, which often regard rural Chinese communities as one-dimensionally materialistic, politically conservative, egocentric (lacking public-mindedness, as in anthropologist Yan Yunxiang's notion of the "uncivil individual"), in possession of collapsed beliefs, and thinking only of the present (or the "today-ness of today" according to anthropologist Liu Xin), this book shows that people in contemporary rural China are actually "two-dimensional": trying to combine the calculation of self-interest with affective networks of reciprocity, but often falling into awkwardness or cynicism, in a paradoxical symbiosis between nihilism and transcendence. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Sociology, Anthropology and East Asian Studies. It will also be essential reading for those who are interested in contemporary China in general"--
