A Talk by Dr. Andrew Kipnis, Australian National University
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
4:00 PM
10383 Bunche Hall, UCLA
Modernization theory emphasizes the discontinuities of capitalist urbanization—abrupt shifts in kinship practice, orientation towards community, ways of life, individuation, etc. Contemporary Chinese urbanization is taking place at breakneck speed, and most anthropological studies of this urbanization have occurred in China’s largest urban areas, where migrant workers are sharply displaced from their rural homes and classic social processes, including the intensification of anomie and “individualism,” loom large. But much of China’s urbanization is taking place in mid-sized metropolises—places that 20 years ago were dusty towns of 10-20,000 people which today are cities of 200,000-400,000 people. This paper examines the growth of one such city as a case in which intimate linkages between the rural / socialist past and the urban/capitalist present remain socially important.
Andrew Kipnis is a Senior Fellow in the Department of Anthropology, College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. He is editor of Chinese Modernity and the Individual Psyche（forthcoming, Palgrave Macmillan）, co-editor of The China Journal, and author of Governing Educational Desire（U. of Chicago Press, 2011）, China and Postsocialist Anthropology（Eastbridge, 2008）, and Producing Guanxi（Duke U. Press, 1997）. His current research focuses on rethinking processes of urbanization through an ethnographic study of a rapidly growing mid-sized Chinese city.
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