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socialist peddlers and princes in a Chinese market town
Author(s) -
SIU HELEN F.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1989.16.2.02a00010
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , involution (esoterism) , china , liberalization , opposition (politics) , politics , political economy , state (computer science) , economic liberalization , sociology , political science , law , algorithm , computer science
The problems of economic liberalization in a market town in south China raise theoretical and empirical questions concerning the role of the state at the local level, both in the past and in the present. The failure of the party‐state to disengage itself from society today is due to an administrative history to the unfolding of which the town residents have contributed their efforts. In an era of entrepreneurial vigor that is promoted officially, social life and economic choices continue to be guided by manipulations of and around bureaucratic power. State and local society have interpenetrated each other in ways that are overlooked by conceptual schemes that emphasize their mechanical opposition. What we have here is an example of “state involution,” of their inextricable interlocking.[rural China, socialist transformation, market revival, political culture, state involution, social change]