Ghost Protocol: Development and Displacement in Global China - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822361779 ISBN 13: 9780822361770

Publisher: Duke University Press Books, 2016

Synopsis

Even as China is central to the contemporary global economy, its socialist past continues to shape its capitalist present. This volume's contributors see contemporary China as haunted by the promises of capitalism, the institutional legacy of the Maoist regime, and the spirit of Marxist resistance. China's development does not result from historical imperatives or deliberate economic strategies, but from the effects of discrete practices the contributors call protocols, which stem from an overlapping mix of socialist and capitalist institutional strategies, political procedures, legal regulations, religious rituals, and everyday practices. Analyzing the process of urbanization and the ways marginalized communities and migrant workers are positioned in relation to the transforming social landscape, the contributors show how these protocols constitute the Chinese national imaginary while opening spaces for new emancipatory possibilities. Offering a nuanced theory of contemporary China's hybrid political economy, Ghost Protocol situates China's development at the juncture between the world as experienced and the world as imagined.

Contributors. Yomi Braester, Alexander Des Forges, Kabzung, Rachel Leng, Ralph A. Litzinger, Lisa Rofel, Carlos Rojas, Bryan Tilt, Robin Visser, Biao Xiang, Emily T. Yeh

About this title

About the Author

Carlos Rojas is Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies; Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies; and Arts of the Moving Image at Duke University. He is the author, editor, and translator of several books, most recently Homesickness: Culture, Contagion, and National Transformation in Modern China.
Ralph A. Litzinger is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University and the author of Other Chinas: The Yao and the Politics of National Belonging, also published by Duke University Press.

Review

"China offers itself as perhaps the most obvious case for critical neo-Marxian analysis on account of its peculiar socialist-capitalist hybridity. Highlighting this hybridity, the contributors provide us with a vivid, subtle, and reflexive framework to delve into several pressing issues about Chinese society, economy, and culture in the post-Reform era. With sophistication, elegance, and incisive conceptualization, Ghost Protocol never loses sight of the world's influence on China or China's growing influence on the world." (Angela Zito, coeditor of DV-Made China: Digital Subjects and Social Transformations After Independent Film)

"Ghost Protocol treats Chinese development as a fluid and contested process and challenges simple and schematic views about contemporary China. Shedding light on confusing issues about China's socialist past and 'capitalist' future, it contributes to debates about transformations of socialism and capitalism. The book provides a compelling lens to examine socialism as societies and communities attempt to protect ordinary people from the destructive, fictive commodification of labor, land, and money." (Ban Wang, author of Illuminations from the Past: Trauma, Memory, and History in Modern China)

Edition details

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0822361779
• ISBN 13: 9780822361770
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272
• Editor: Rojas Carlos, Litzinger Ralph A.