Cooperation in Chinese Communities: Morality and Practice

✍ Scribed by Charles Stafford, Ellen R. Judd, Eona Bell

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 303
• Series: LSE Monographs on Social Anthropology
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

When humans cooperate, what are the social and psychological mechanisms that enable them to do so successfully? Is cooperativeness something natural for humans, built in to our species over the course of evolution, or rather something that depends on cultural learning and social interaction? This book addresses these central questions concerning human nature and the nature of cooperation.

The editors present a wide range of vivid anthropological case-studies focused on everyday cooperation in Chinese communities, for example, between children in Nanjing playing a ballgame; parents in Edinburgh organising a community school; villagers in Yunnan dealing with “common pool” resource problems; and families in Kinmen in Taiwan worshipping their dead together.

On the one hand, these case studies illustrate some uniquely Chinese cultural factors, such as those related to kinship ideals and institutions that shape the experience and practice of cooperation. They also illustrate, on the other hand, how China's recent history, not least the rise and fall of collectivism in various forms, continues to shape the experience of cooperation for ordinary people in China today. Finally, they show that in spite of the cultural and historical particularity of Chinese cooperation, it does share some underlying features that would be familiar to people coming from radically different backgrounds.

About the Author
Charles Stafford is Professor at the London School of Economics, UK.
Ellen R. Judd is Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba, Canada.
Eona Bell is Affiliated Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Cambridge University and Research Officer at the London School of Economics, UK.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Contributor Biographies
Preface: The Morality of Chinese Cooperation
Chapter One Kin and non-kin cooperation in China
Chapter Two Playing ball: Cooperation and competition in two Chinese primary schools
Chapter Three The role of xiao in moral reputation management and cooperation in urban China and Taiwan
Chapter Four Harmony ideology in Chinese families: Cooperating despite unfairness
Chapter Five Cooperation in funerals in a patrilineal village in Jinmen (Taiwan)
Chapter Six Memory leaks: Local histories of cooperation as a solution to water-related cooperation problems
Chapter Seven Care as bureaucratic lubricant: The role of female care workers in an old people’s home in rural China
Chapter Eight Reputation, morality and power in an emigrant community (qiaoxiang) in Guangdong Province
Chapter Nine Jiaoqing ethics and the sustainability of non-kin cooperation
Chapter Ten Power, gender and ‘network-based cooperation’: A study of migrant workers in Shenzhen
Chapter Eleven Challenges to ethnic cooperation among Hong Kong Chinese in Scotland
Chapter Twelve Problems in the new cooperative movement: A window onto changing cooperation mechanisms
Chapter Thirteen Cooperation, competition and care: Notes from China’s New Rural Cooperative Medical System
References
Index