| Since the economic reforms of the late 1970s, the Chinese state has shown an ostensible recession from the daily operations of society as compared with the prereform era. In the Maoist past, the state controlled the economic, social, and political life of urbanites through the intricate structure of the work unit system. At present, work units do not interfere for the most part with their members' private live. In addition, they, along with individual private citizens, are permitted to engage in economic activities as autonomous entities on the domestic and international markets. This flourishing commerce and the expanding private sector give the appearance of a society outside the command of the state. However, the more subdued presence of the state does not mean that it has retracted its reach from society and neither has it led necessarily to more autonomy for Chinese urbanites. My dissertation offers an ethnography of urban life in China that details the complicated but necessary techniques urbanites use to survive the shifting grounds of state and society. Ethnographic fieldwork on which this dissertation is based was conducted from March 1995 to July 1997 in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province in southwest China. Data are drawn from participant-observation, formal and informal interviews, and the rich sources of daily newspapers, current magazines, and books. The chapters of the dissertation are arranged according to five related themes of urban life: family background, education, marriage, work, and the stock market. Two voices address each theme: one from the “host” perspective of an urban Chinese man and the other from the “guest” perspective of an anthropologist. Together, the two voices describe the ways in which Chinese urbanites navigate the complex bargaining between state and society. |
