The middle class in neoliberal China : governing risk, life-building, and themed spaces / Hai Ren.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ren, Hai, 1965-

Series:

Routledge contemporary China series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Middle class--China.

Middle class.

Politics and government.

China.

Social change--China.

Social change.

China--Economic policy--2000-.

Economic policy.

China--Politics and government--21st century.

Physical Description:

xii, 192 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Routledge, 2012.

Summary:

Ren (East Asian studies and anthropology, U. of Arizona) examines the place of the emergent middle class in contemporary society, adopting the Foucauldian perspective of the dispositive to overcome the incompatibilities between Marxian, Weberian, and Habermasian conceptualizations of the middle class and show how it is constituted through power, wealth, and risk in the neoliberal economy, through media and communication, and through the values and norms transmitted through individualization. Three major themes guide the investigation: the relationship between those who have benefitted and those who have lost from neoliberal development, the role of the built environment in the construction of class, and the ways in which the middle class becomes recognized as a norm of citizenship in the practice of everyday life. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

Introduction: the risk economy of the middle class

The state question of the middle class

Cultural neoliberalization

Life spectacles

Imagineering a middle class society

Middle class photography

Individualization and precariousness of life

Conclusion: the middle class dispositive in Chinese risk society.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780415501354

0415501350

9780203080764

0203080769

OCLC:

746838397