A localized culture of welfare : entitlements, stratification, and identity in a Chinese lineage village / Kwok-shing Chan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chan, Kwok-shing.

Series:

AsiaWorld

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public welfare--China--Hong Kong.

Public welfare.

Public welfare--China.

Kinship.

Families.

China.

Families--China--Hong Kong.

Families--China.

Kinship--China--Hong Kong.

Kinship--China.

China--Hong Kong.

Physical Description:

xi, 223 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lanham [Maryland] : Lexington Books, [2012]

Summary:

Hong Kong has undergone rapid and substantial social, economic, political, and demographic changes since the 1970s. This book examines critically the real impact of these changes on a single-surname village in rural Hong Kong, drawing on anthropological fieldwork conducted during the late 1990s and the early 2000s.

This ethnographic study demonstrates that kinship, particularly agnatic kinship, has remained a valuable resource for Pang villagers, enabling them to acquire key welfare entitlements and to secure a good measure of economic and social well-being. Kinship affiliation has provided and still provides (admittedly differential) access to political patronage and legal entitlements, financial assistance, and the substantial benefits of corporate property-holding, physical protection and political leadership, employment, care-giving and support networks, housing needs, and old age security in a ritually imagined community with a sense of spiritual well-being. Agnatic kinship has been organized as a corporate institution and as a quasi-religious community through which substantial support, protection, and privileged access are provided for villagers. At the same time, reliance on this elaborate "localized culture of welfare" has maintained or reinforced the contours of stratification and inequality among Pang villagers, even as lineage identity has remained largely intact in the face of changing external circumstances. Book jacket.

Contents:

Maps, tables, and diagrams

Acknowledgments

Note on romanization

Introduction : welfare and security, an anthropological perspective

The Pang lineage village

Living under threat : reactions to Hong Kong's return to China

Corporate resources and financial security

Communal safety and protection

Employment and care provisions

Entitlement and value : housing

Old age welfare and security

The religious pursuit of welfare and security

Conclusion

Methodological appendix

Glossary

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780739166871

0739166875

OCLC:

798060267