eBook - ePub

Windfall Wealth and Envy in Contemporary China

Name: Windfall Wealth and Envy in Contemporary China
ISBN: 9781040377864

Zhang Hui,

English
ePUB (mobile friendly)
Available on iOS & Android

eBook - ePub

Windfall Wealth and Envy in Contemporary China

Zhang Hui,

About this book

This groundbreaking study examines the cultural manifestations of envy in China during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, a period of unprecedented economic and social change.

China's rapid accumulation of wealth – particularly its uneven distribution, which created overnight millionaires alongside those left behind – provides anthropologists with a unique opportunity to test theories of envy as a fundamental human emotion. Unlike traditional societies, where established cultural mechanisms such as witchcraft, sorcery or the 'evil eye' help to manage envy, China offers a unique case study. Based on extensive fieldwork in northern Chinese villages between 2006 and 2008, the author explores how sudden mining wealth has triggered various envy-related discourses and practices and reveals how these wealth disparities have reshaped social dynamics and moral landscapes. The study examines cultural expressions of envy, public discourses of malicious envy, the everyday contexts that shape envy and its social impact, the moral codes that govern the envied and their defensive strategies, and how families understand the ethics of success and failure. Through this lens, she illuminates a local moral world amidst one of humanity's most profound social transformations.

This book will be an essential reference for anthropologists, sociologists, scholars and students of contemporary Chinese society, ethnography and the anthropology of emotions.

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Yes, you can access Windfall Wealth and Envy in Contemporary China by Zhang Hui in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Cultural & Social Anthropology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.