Consuming China: Approaches To Cultural Change In Contempor

Description: Post-Mao China has been characterized in the literature and the media as a burgeoning consumer society. 'Consuming China' investigates this characterization by examining the cultural significance of consumption and consumerism in the People's Republic of China today. In questioning the notion of consumption, the book suggests that it is not simply a symptom of economic reform within China neither a product of the emergence and transformation of contemporary Chinese capitalism. Rather the essays offer a new perspective on Chinese consumption by focusing on more than just consumerism; looking at the practices of consumption in relation to different manifestations of social and cultural change. Drawing on case studies from Taiwan, Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China, 'Consuming China' affords a greater understanding of the practice of Chinese consumption and will appeal to China scholars and anthropologists, and to those with an interest in cultural and gender studies. Table of Contents: 1. Introduction: Consumption and Cultural Change in Contemporary China 'Kevin Latham '2. Conjuring Goods, Identities and Cultures 'Elisabeth Croll ' 3. Deception, Corruption and the Chinese Ritual Economy 'Charles Stafford' 4.' 'The Emergence of Consumer Rights: Legal Protection of the Consumer in the PRC 'Michael Palmer ' 5. Powers of Imagination: The Role of the Consumer in China's Silent Media Revolution 'Kevin Latham' 6. Changing Tastes in Guangzhou: Restaurant Writings in the late 1990s 'Jakob Klein' 7'.' On (not) Eating the Dead: Reader's Digest of a Chinese Funerary Taboo 'Stuart Thompson' 8.' 'Images of the Chinese: Photography and Consumerism in 1990s Hangzhou 'John Bayne' 9.' 'Fashions and Feminine Consumption 'Harriett Evans '10. Wong Kar-wai's Sensuous Histories 'Luke Robinson' 11. The Consuming or the Consumed? Virtual Hmong in China 'Nicholas Tapp' 12. Afterword: Reflections on China, Consumption and Cultural Change 'Kevin Latham' Author Biography: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK