Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this volume examines the relationship between space and the production of local popular culture in contemporary China. The international team of contributors examine the inter-relationship between the cultural imaginary of a given place and China’s continuing drive towards urbanization. This has led to the development of new spaces and places, and new forms of spatial practices that destabilise old concepts of the ‘local’ and ‘locality’.
Delivering ethnographic observations and theoretical speculations, this text furthers our understanding of the link between spatial thinking and the production of consumer culture in China.
Introduction: The Politics and Production of Scales: How Does Geography Matter to Studies of Local, Popular Culture? Jing Wang 1. Land of Living Fossils: Scaling Cultural Prestige in China’s Periphery Tim Oakes 2. Regional Formations and Transnational Urbanism in South China Carolyn Cartier 3. The Cultural Landscape of Luxury Housing in South China: A Regional History Helen Siu 4. Identifying China’s Northwest, for Nation and Empire Peter Perdue 5. Popularization and Localization: A Local Tabloid Newspaper Market in Transition Hans Hendrischke 6. From Barrooms to Teahouses: Commercial Nightlife in Hainan Since1988 Feng Chongyi 7. Ethno-consumerism as Cultural Production: Making Space for Miao Style Louisa Schein 8. Anhui Baomu in Shanghai: Gender, Class, and a Sense of Place Wanning Sun 9. The Pornographic City Tani E. Barlow
Biography
Jing Wang is S. C. Fang Professor of Chinese Language and Culture at MIT and affiliated faculty with Comparative Media Studies there. She is the founder and organizer of the MIT International Program of Critical Policy Studies of China. She is the author of The Story of Stone (1992) and High Culture Fever (1996); the editor of Chinese Popular Culture and the State (2001), co-editor (with Tani Barlow) of Cinema and Desire (2002). She is working on a book manuscript brand new China: advertising and the production of commercial culture. Currently working on branding and advertising in contemporary China.
