On the Edge : Feeling Precarious in China / Margaret Hillenbrand.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hillenbrand, Margaret, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Food security--China.

Food security.

Marginality, Social--China.

Marginality, Social.

Precarious employment--China.

Precarious employment.

Uncertainty.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (405 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2023]

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

"On the Edge probes precarity in contemporary China through the lens of the dark and angry cultural forms that chronic uncertainty has generated since the millennium. Drawing on and expanding from social science work, the only currently available academic treatment of precarity in China, Hillenbrand argues that a substantial minority of Chinese workers-as many as 300 million people-exist in what she calls "zombie citizenship," a state of dehumanizing exile from the law and its safeguards. She further demonstrates that culture is a core space in which this rage and conflict break cover, via a range of aesthetic forms in which different class actors confront one another in postures of antagonism. This friction articulates itself in volatile, break-out cultural forms: suicide shows, brutal performance art, confrontational livestreaming, waste art, and poetry from the Foxconn factory floor. The book's approach is vigorously interdisciplinary, fusing digital media, art history, literary criticism, and performance studies with citizenship, protest, and labor studies. It places both the distinctive Chinese experience and the vital role of culture at the heart of our global understanding of what entrenched insecurity and civic jeopardy do to the bonds of the social contract"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: grasping the precarious

The delegators

The ragpickers

The vocalists and the ventriloquists

The cliffhangers

The microcelebrities

Conclusion: viral precarity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Hillenbrand, Margaret, 1972- On the edge

ISBN:

9780231559232

0231559232

OCLC:

1392345587