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This is a well researched, clearly written, and detailed ethnography of the micro cultural politics of everyday consumption practices among urban Chinese Muslims (also called Hui in China) in the post-Mao reform era. It is based on 18 months of fieldwork conducted during the mid-1990s in a large Muslim neighborhood in the northwestern city of Xiían. The book examines the shifting relationship between material consumption and modernization as Chinese society turns to commercialization and global capitalism. It also explores some of the implications for understanding the changing dynamics between the Chinese state, local communities, and citizens. Based on fresh and solid ethnographic materials, the study demonstrates that even though the majority of Xiían Hui desire and embrace the modernization paradigm promoted by the Chinese party-state, the specific vision of modernization and meaning of being modern differ greatly from the officially sanctioned ideology. In other words, this group of people may have adopted the goals and language of modernization and consumerism offered by the state, but they frequently draw inspiration and social imagination from a quite different source “Arabized Islamic modernity” as their index of civilization and an alternative vision of modernization. This tendency is most clearly manifest in the Arabization of the architectural style of recently built mosques in the community. Because this alternative way of defining and pursuing modernization is located outside the state’s purview and direct control, it often invokes anxieties and creates tensions between this Muslim community and local government (largely dominated by Han Chinese). The author shows nicely both the continued salience of state power and its limits in an increasingly marketized consumer society. On the one hand, the Chinese party-state is able to instill a meta-narrative of progress among its citizens, and presents itself as the sole legitimate director of state-guided modernization. On the other hand, there have emerged a number of unintended consequences in everyday practices of modernization that go beyond state control. With increased wealth, consumption power, and access to translocal and transnational flows of material goods, Xi'an Hui as well as other Chinese citizens have gained more personal freedom and space in their consumption choices and private life. Yet, often caught between the practical consideration of economic gain and the concern for social control, local government’s response to these new consumption practices is largely ambivalent. Consumption is the focal point of investigation in this book and there are two layers of consumption explored. First, the author devotes a substantive portion of the ethnography to a close examination of several key aspects of material consumption such as food, the architectural design of local mosques, and clothing (especially the emerging fashion of Western-style wedding gowns highly desired by young Hui women). She argues that these seemingly mundane practices are not simply choices of consumer goods and physical conditions; rather they are essential ways in which the Muslims in Xiían seek to articulate a sense of self and their socioeconomic status, while demonstrating their ability to modernize themselves. These daily consumption acts thus constitute important arenas in which cultural contestation takes place. In particular, the book offers insights in the symbolic importance and the political economy of food and eating for Muslim Chinese. The detailed ethnographic account explains how and why, for Hui residents in Xiían, food preparation and eating constitute a vital component in the formation of their cultural and religious identity and a sense of superiority in relation to Han Chinese. Focusing on the concept of qingzhen (literally meaning “pure and true”), the author analyzes two strikingly different ways that Hui and government officials define and understand qingzhen: For Hui it is most importantly linked to the notion of cleanliness and purity from the Islamic perspective; but for the state it is a racial matter measured by Hui ethnic membership of the cook and employees of a business. Yet, despite this difference, Hui residents make use of and capitalize on the stateadvocated notion of ìtraditional Hui cuisineî for their own economic gain. The commodification of Hui tradition (through food industry and tourism) is, however, a double-edged sword. Although it brings profits to Hui familybased restaurant businesses, it at the same time reaffirms their inferior social status as a less civilized, unchangeable, and backward people outside the modern world. Equally interesting is the author’s discussion of how the recent flooding of mass-produced, machine-made factory food has quickly led to Hui’s redefinition of qingzhen, allowing Reviews

journal of political ecology

Between Mecca and Beijing: Modernization and Consumption among Urban Chinese Muslims, by Maris Boyd Gillette. (2000), Stanford: Stanford University Press. Reviewed by Li Zhang