This is an anthropological study of peasant economy and culture, derived from field research on patterns of social organization and production of two ethnically different rural communities (Han and Mosuo) in northwest Yunnan, China. Its aim is to explore the local contexts for understanding the changes that recent economic reforms have brought to peasant life, and the cultural as well as ecological factors that constrain peasant economic activities. Current economic reforms have been accompanied by institutional changes, of which the most important for this research is the change in political relations between local and central governments. The expansion of local autonomy has had significant implications for the management of resources. The study shows that the behavior of the two local governments has had remarkably different economic consequences. The most noteworthy policy change in the economic reforms affecting rural society has been the implementation of the household responsibility system which brought down the twenty-year old collective system and has since altered the economic landscape of the countryside. This study emphasizes how kinship systems affect the form of household organization in both Han and Mosuo communities, and how existing social relationships are manifest in economic activities. "Rice Ears" and "Cattle Tails" are images drawing attention to the culturally salient differences in the patterns of production of the two communities. Rice ears constitute a cultural image of subsistence security in the Han community; and cattle tails constitute a cultural image of prosperity and development in the Mosuo community. Apart from the ecological factors which give rise to the particular patterns of livelihood in each community, cultural values associated the particular pattern of production account for many of the economic choices of the peasants and the persistence of economic forms. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

This study examines the movement to establish and consolidate rural people's communes in China during the period 1958-1965. It concentrates on the development and consolidation of people's communes in the northern province of Shandong. The thesis argues that there are two trends in contemporary theories of Third World Development. One sees the development of Third World countries as a process of economic moves through adoption of advanced western technology and by the transformation of social institutions according to the features of ideal type of the western model. The other suggests that the development of Third World countries is not merely a process of economic growth, but is conditioned both by their respective historical backgrounds and the world-system. It is argued that China subscribes to the latter version of development theory. It is suggested that, historically, Chinese society followed a particular path of development. The western impact on China gradually brought about the disintegration of the traditional society. Chinese development strategy after 1949, especially after the establishment of the people's communes, is distinctive and differs not only from the dominant mode of development in China's past, but also from the modes in advanced societies of western Europe and North America, and the Third World in general. The people's commune is considered as possessing an identifiable structure and subject to a process of growth and change. Its development is seen as a response to basic economic realities and also, to an important degree, to human decision-making. It is argued that the commune system is at the center of China's strategy for rural development. Within the context of Shandong, the development of the people's commune is seen through an analysis of agricultural production, local industry, building of water conservancy, as well as changes in family institutions. The analysis of this study shows that the characteristics of the development of the people's communes during 1958-1965 manifest in two major aspects. First, development planning aims at resolving certain peasant problems which are a heritage of the traditional mode of economic development in China, and to fulfill modernization and some specific ideological goals. Secondly, the development of the people's communes helps to retain the traditional structure of rural community. The latter is essentially found in the features of self-control and self-sufficiency in political and economic life in the people's communes, and also in the development of human relations. The major sources of this study consist of documentary research, i.e., Chinese local and national newspapers of the period under study, and magazines of the same period. Interviews of émigrés were also used as supplementary sources. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Unknown

杜平. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-161) / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Du Ping.

Lui Kin-wai. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 158-171). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter I. --- Abstract --- p.i / Chapter II. --- Acknowledgement --- p.iv / Chapter III. --- Contents --- p.v / Chapter / Chapter I. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- Population Policy in PRC --- p.9 / A Historical Review 9; Overview of the Fertility Rate and Population / Growth under the Population Policy in the Chinese Mainland 19; Impacts / of the Population Policy on Gender Issue 22; Conclusion28 / Chapter III. --- Literature Review --- p.47 / International Experience 47; Studies of Gender Preference in the Chinese / Mainland 53; Conclusion62 / Chapter IV. --- Methodology and data --- p.67 / Theoretical framework: Gender Preference from the Economic Perspective / 67; Econometrics Models 75; Data95 / Chapter V. --- Estimated Results --- p.107 / Proxies for Gender Preference 107; Estimated Results of Model 1109; / Estimated Results of Model 2 116; Conclusion for the Estimated Results / Chapter VI. --- Conclusion --- p.132 / Appendix / Chapter 1. --- Definition of Indicators --- p.138 / Chapter 2. --- Multinomial Logit model --- p.141 / Chapter 3. --- Different Model Specifications --- p.144 / Different Model Specifications for Model 1 144; Different Model / Specifications for Model2 152 / Reference --- p.158

In the past 30 years, China's economic reforms have forced many state-owned factories (SOEs) to collapse, and both men and women workers were dismissed. In urban Northeast China many laid-off women were able to find employment in the service industry and small-scale private businesses, while their husbands had difficulty finding a satisfactory job. As such, the wives became breadwinners of the families. Based on fieldwork data collected through face-to-face interviews, focus group interviews and participant observation, this study examines resultant spousal relationships in the aspects of family finance, domestic division of labor, power relations, and foundation of marriage, as the husband and wife swapped their economic roles at home. This study finds that when women control more economic capital than men in the nuclear family, domestic division of labor, power relations and affection between couples all tend to be more egalitarian. However, the concept of a male-breadwinner family and the gender segregation of space are still popular on material and social levels. Thus without corresponding changes on the ideological level regarding gender, patriarchy will remain dominant on the community and national levels. Analysis on spousal relationships shows that the economic, political and emotional aspects of marriage are interconnected and interactive, and they work together to decide how spousal relationships may be altered in times of rapid social transformation. In the era of market economy, family and marriage values are diversified, and marriage tends to be less stable. However, this study finds that the integrity of family and marriage has been kept in the laid-off workers' families even when spousal relationships face serious challenges caused by unemployment. The reason is that these laid-off workers have formed their gender identities during the socialist era which emphasized the integrity of family and marriage. In the market era, laid off workers have maintained these values and upheld the integrity of marriage and family as the fundamental standard for being a good man or good woman. In this process, spousal relationship becomes a mechanism of governance by making individuals gendered subjects. / Lu, Ming. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 161-176). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Background --- p.1 / Literature review --- p.11 / Methodology --- p.25 / Structure of thesis --- p.28 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Family & Marriage in China --- p.31 / The patricentric Chinese family as ideology and praxis --- p.31 / The family and marriage under state feminism --- p.39 / The family in Post-Mao China --- p.47 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Dealing with Financial Crisis at Home --- p.56 / Xiagang as a gradual process --- p.56 / The genderedness of re-employment & wives as breadwinners --- p.69 / Besieged masculinity --- p.75 / Women’s success in small-scale private businesses --- p.79 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Whose Work Is It? --- p.86 / State feminism vs. housework --- p.86 / Childcare: work and authority --- p.96 / The praxis of family authority --- p.100 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Changing Foundation of marriage --- p.113 / Obliged freedom: Match-making and marriage in the 1970-80s --- p.114 / Marriage and unemployment --- p.122 / Companionship in marriage vs. obliged couples --- p.136 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.144 / References Cited --- p.161

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Communication

[Truncated abstract] Since the late 1970s, the phrase that has captured the imagination of China's enormous socio-economic change is kaifang (opening up). This phrase signals not only a series of state-directed projects to make China a 'modern' nation, but also a self-conscious desire to find a new sense of national importance and 'Chineseness'. This nationalist self-consciousness is not new, but it indicates a desire to leave China's socialist past behind and become a world power in the new millennium. This thesis explores the complex and heightened manifestations of national pride and identity that have emerged since the era of opening up. Its central question examines how a renewed form of Chineseness, with a specific focus on a fresh form of Chinese same-sex identity, is articulated in both nationalist and globalist terms, with particular reference to China's opening up. This thesis thus contributes to an understanding of how Chinese same-sex identity in urban China is variously constructed and celebrated; how it is transformed; and how it presents its resistances in the context of China's opening up to the mighty flux of globalisation. In doing so, the research illuminates how seemingly modern and authentic Chinese gay and lesbian identities in urban China come into being at the intersection of certain competing discourses. These discourses are predominantly represented in the contexts of 1) an increasingly globalised gay culture, 2) the ongoing construction of an indigenous Chinese identity, 3) a hybridised transnational/Chinese identity, and 4) the emergence of a gay space in Chinese cyberspace. By indicating how these discourses are simultaneously globalised, localised and deterritorialised, and are necessarily entangled with global power relations, I demonstrate how an essentialised notion of Chinese same-sex identity is continuously transformed by the imaginary power of China's opening up to broader contexts. I conclude that it is within the paradigm of China's opening up to the current globalising world that same-sex identity in urban China, as a rapidly changing notion, can best be understood. ... To an extent, the articulation of seemingly modern and authentic Chinese gay and lesbian identities in urban China is in a state of continuous tension between opening up to a global identity and preserving a local authenticity. Furthermore, the development of these gay and lesbian identities is conditioned and regulated by political thought and action. In this way, political conditioning ensures control and conformity in the articulation of Chinese (same-sex) identity in a self-censored (or ziwo shencha) manner. Most fundamentally, self-censorship is practised more effectively at an individual level than at a state level. Against this background, I argue that the articulation of same-sex identity in urban China is paradoxical: open and decentred, but at the same time, nationalist and conforming to state control.

Reinterpreting the issues of urban density development in Hong Kong, this thesis studies the spatial-temporal production processes of Sham Shui Po as a high density social space. Lefebvre’s theory of ‘the production of space’ is applied for a qualitative-based theoretical-empirical analysis. This study criticizes past literature on urban density issues in Hong Kong, dominated by discourses built upon absolute space approach, for their reductionist methodologies and findings simplifying man-space relations and concealing in-depth socio-political implications. The analysis is centred on three dialectically related elements: spatial practices, conceived spaces (objective, abstract knowledge of space), and lived spaces (subjective values on space). Deciphering the geographical-historical interactions of the spatial trialectics over Sham Shui Po in general and at individual level, particularly residential and street-commercial spaces, this thesis suggests that Sham Shui Po is deeply influenced by the spatial abstractions of formal density control comprising planning knowledge, legal establishment, capitalist processes, and informal control on spatial practices. They have together rendered Sham Shui Po a space technically and functionally organized in terms of the development of residential and street spaces, resulting in massive property development, widespread space subdivision for high density dwellings, and unique street life with dynamic and transient concentration of corporeality and materiality. It is also found that recently inhabitants are subject to a dissipation of spatial resistance for alternative dwelling practices due to oppressions from continuously enhanced conceived spaces re-imposing on them and their living spaces. Individuals influenced by consequentially renewed social identities can also be found trapped into high density spaces physically and institutionally, as their spatial practices have been separated, confined and simplified within both interior-residential and exterior-street spaces. Sham Shui Po reveals itself as different spatial mismatches when inhabitants’ lived spaces for securing their spaces of everyday life are without proper response. Deepening the spatial traps and mismatches, the research area is as well undergoing redevelopment processes in reproducing other forms of high density physical fabric, at the expense of original socio-spatialities, through spatial default and historical disconnection

published_or_final_version / Comparative Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences / Department of Sociology