Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wp2c8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-09T18:11:28.891Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Organising the Old: Senior Authority and the Political Significance of a Rural Chinese ‘Non-Governmental Organisation’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2008

METTE HALSKOV HANSEN
METTE HALSKOV HANSEN*
Affiliation:
University of Oslo, Dept. of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, p.b. 1010 Blindern 0315 Oslo, Norway Email: m.h.hansen@ikos.uio.no
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that villagers' weakened trust in local governments has caused the officials to develop new strategies to cooperate with people and groups who enjoy traditional forms of authority. More specifically, the article shows how the officially established Old People' Associations in some areas have gained political influence far beyond what their official status as an “NGO” (minjian zuzhzi) would warrant. Villages of Fujian have a long history of being organised around patrilinear lineage organisations, and especially the older men still enjoys authority among the population. Local authorities, as well as business people, are therefore actively trying to engage and mobilise this traditional senior authority for their own political and economic purposes, thereby creating new relations of local power.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 5 , September 2008 , pp. 1057 - 1078
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baker, Hugh D. R. 1979. Chinese Family and Kinship. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd.Google Scholar
Beck, Ulrich, and Elisabeth, Beck-Gernsheim. 2003. Individualization. London/New Delhi: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Brook, Timothy, and Michael Frolic, B.. 1997. Civil Society in China. Studies in Contemporary China. Armonk, NY: Sharpe.Google Scholar
Chan, Anita. 1998. “Labor standards and human rights: Chinese workers under market socialism”. Human Rights Quarterly 20 (4):886–904.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, Anita, and Zhu, Xiaoyang. 2003. “Disciplinary labor regimes in Chinese factories”. Critical Asian Studies 35 (4):559–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Myron. 2005. Kinship, Contract, Community, and State. Anthropological Perspectives on China. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ding, Yijiang. 1998. “Corporatism and civil society in China: An overview of the debate in recent years”. China Information 12 (4):44–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douw, Leo. 1999. “Introduction”. In Qiaoxiang Ties: Interdisciplinary Approaches to “Cultural Capitalism” in South China, edited by Douw, L., Huang, C. and Godley, M. R.. Leiden and Amsterdam: International Institute for Asian Studies, pp. 3–21.Google Scholar
Douw, Leo, Cen, Huang, and Godley, Michael R., eds. 1999. Qiaoxiang Ties: Interdisciplinary Approaches to “Cultural Capitalism” in South China. Leiden and Amsterdam: International Institute for Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Douw, Leo, Cen, Huang, David, Ip. 2001. Rethinking Chinese Transnational Enterprises: Cultural Affinity and Business Strategies. Richmond, Surrey: IIAS/Curzon.Google Scholar
Xuefeng, He. 2004. “Laoren xiehui”. (The Old People's Associations”. In Zhongguo nongcun yanjiu wang (The Web page for research on Chinese villages). http:/www.ccrs.org.cn. Accessed 15.12.06Google Scholar
Jacka, Tamara. 1997. Women's Work in Rural China: Change and Continuity in an Era of Reform. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jun, Jing. 1996. The Temple of Memories: History, Power and Morality in a Chinese Village. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Kipnis, Andrew B. 1997. Producing Guanxi: Sentiment, Self, and Subculture in a North China Village. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Luo, Xingzuo. 2002. “Lun cunzhuang zhilizhong de minjian zuzhi yan yi Zhejiang Wenzhou Xianfeng Cun wei ge'an” (A Discussion of the popular organisation within village administration taking Xianfeng village in Wenzhou, Zhejiang as a an example). In Wenzhou moshi yanjiu (Model Research from Wenzhou) (4): 9–14.Google Scholar
Potter, Sulamith Heins, and Potter, Jack M.. 1990. China's Peasants: The Anthropology of a Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redding, S. Gordon. 1990. The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism. Berlin: W. de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shue, Vivienne. 1988. The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politic. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tsai, Lily Lee. 2002. “Cadres, temple and lineage institutions, and governance in rural China”. The China Journal (48, July): 1–27.Google Scholar
Wang, Xiaoyi, and Zhu, Chengbao. 1996. “Zhongguo xiangcun de minying qiye yu jiazu jingji. Zhejiang Sheng Cangnan Xian Xiangdong Xun diaocha.” (Nonstate enterprises and family economy in Rural China. Survey report of Xiangdong Village, Zhejiang Province). In Dangdai Zhongguo de cunzhuang jingji yu cunluo wenhua congshu (Village economy and culture in contemporary China). Edited by Jiyuan, Chen and Herrmann-Pillath, H. M. C.. Taiyuan: Shanxi jingji chubanshe.Google Scholar
White, Gordon, Howell, Jude A., and Xiaoyuan, Shang. 1996. In Search of Civil Society: Market Reform and Social Change in Contemporary China. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yan, Yunxiang. 1996. The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Yan, Yunxiang. 1999. “Rural youth and youth culture in north China”. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry (23):75–97.Google Scholar
Yan, Yunxiang. 2003. Private Life Under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village, 1949–1999. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui. 1994. Gifts, Favors, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Yao, Souchou. 2002. Confucian Capitalism: Discourse, Practice and the Myth of Chinese Enterprise. London: RoutledgeCurzon.Google Scholar
Zhejiang Retired Workers Committee. 2004. Zhejiang Sheng jiceng laonianren xiehui guifanhua jianshe biaozhun. (Building the criterias for the standardisation of the Old People's Associations of Zhejiang). Unpublished report.Google Scholar
Zheng, Zhenman. 2001. Family Lineage Organization and Social Change in Ming and Qing Fujian. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar