Subaltern China : rural migrants, media, and cultural practices / Wanning Sun.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sun, Wanning, 1963-

Series:

Asia/Pacific/perspectives

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Agricultural laborers--China--Social conditions.

Agricultural laborers.

Peasants--China--Social conditions.

Peasants.

Migrant labor--China.

Migrant labor.

Marginality, Social--China.

Marginality, Social.

Social classes--China.

Social classes.

Mass media--Political aspects.

Mass media--Social aspects.

Social conditions.

China.

Mass media--Social aspects--China.

Mass media.

Mass media--Political aspects--China.

China--Social conditions--2000-.

China--Economic conditions--2000-.

Economic conditions.

Physical Description:

xvii, 301 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Summary:

"Behind China's growing economic and political power is a vast underworld of marginalized social groups. In this powerful and timely book, Wanning Sun focuses on the country's hundreds of millions of rural migrant workers, who embody China's most intractable problems of inequality. Drawing on rich and extensive fieldwork, the author argues that despite the critical role their labor has played in enabling and sustaining the country's remarkable economic growth, workers and peasants have become the nation's 'subalterns.' Sun focuses especially on the role of media and culture in negotiating the unequal relationships that exist between various social groups. She shows that in the face of the harsh reality of injustice and discrimination, China's rural migrants engage in media and cultural practices that are at once both mundane and profound--invariably imbued with hope and dignity, and motivated by the dream of a better life. Exploring the cultural politics of inequality in post-Mao China, this engaging and compelling book will be essential reading for all concerned with the increasing centrality of media and the cultural politics of representation in our highly digitalized and mediated world"--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Part I. Context, method, and framework

Configuring the Nongmingong

The Chinese subaltern

Part II. Hegemonic mediations

News values, stability maintenance, and the politics of voice

Urban cinema and the limits of harmony production

Part III. Subaltern politics

Documentary videos, cultural activism, and alternative history

Digital-political literacy and photography as self-ethnography

Part IV. Cultural brokering

Worker-poets, political intervention, and cultural brokering

Dagong literature and a new sexual-moral economy

Conclusion

Glossary

Appendix 1A

Appendix 1B.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781442236776

1442236779

OCLC:

875644709