GOVERNING DEATH, MAKING PERSONS : the new chinese way of death

Governing Death, Making Persons tells the story of how economic reforms and changes in the management of death in China have affected the governance of persons . The Chinese Communist Party has sought to channel the funeral industry and death rituals into vehicles for reshaping people into "modern" citizens and subjects. Since the Reform and Opening period and the marketization of state funeral parlors, the Party has promoted personalized funerals in the hope of promoting a market-oriented and individualistic ethos. However, things have not gone as planned. Huwy-min Lucia Liu writes about the funerals she witnessed and the life stories of two kinds of funeral workers: state workers who are quasi-government officials and semilegal private funeral brokers. She shows that end-of-life commemoration in urban China today is characterized by the resilience of social conventions and not a shift toward market economy individualization. Rather than seeing a rise of individualism and the decline of a socialist self, Liu sees the durability of socialist, religious, communal, and relational ideas of self, woven together through creative ritual framings in spite of their contradictions. Governing Death, Making Persons tells the story of how economic reforms and changes in the management of death, in China, affected the governance of persons. The Chinese Communist Party has sought to channel the funeral industry and death rituals into vehicles for reshaping people into "modern" citizens and subjects. Since the Reform and Opening period and the marketization of state funeral parlors, the Party has promoted personalized funerals in the hope of promoting a market-oriented and individualistic ethos. However, things did not go as planned.Huwy-min Lucia Liu writes about funerals she witnessed and the life stories of two kinds of funeral workers: state workers who are quasi-government officials and semi-legal private funeral brokers. She shows that end-of-life commemoration in urban China today is characterized by the resilience of social conventions and not a shift toward market economy individualization. Rather than seeing a rise of individualism and the decline of a socialist self, Liu sees the durability of socialist, religious, communal, and relational ideas of self, woven together through creative ritual framings in spite of their contradictions This book tells the story of how economic reforms and changes in the management of death in China have affected the governance of persons. The Chinese Communist Party has sought to channel the funeral industry and death rituals into vehicles for reshaping people into “modern” citizens and subjects. Since the Reform and Opening period and the marketization of state funeral parlors, the Party has promoted personalized funerals in the hope of promoting a market-oriented and individualistic ethos. However, things have not gone as planned. The book's author writes about the funerals she witnessed and the life stories of two kinds of funeral workers: state workers who are quasi-government officials and semilegal private funeral brokers. She shows that end-of-life commemoration in urban China today is characterized by the resilience of social conventions and not a shift toward market economy individualization. Rather than seeing a rise of individualism and the decline of a socialist self, the author sees the durability of socialist, religious, communal, and relational ideas of self, woven together through creative ritual framings in spite of their contradictions. project_muse_100017-3295497 1 10.1515_9781501767234 2 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Abbreviations 16 Note on Anonymity and Transliteration 18 INTRODUCTION 20 Part 1 THE FUNERAL INDUSTRY AND THE MAKING OF MARKET SUBJECTS 36 1. Civil Governance 36 2. Market Governance 69 3. The Fragile Middle 93 Part 2 DEATH RITUAL AND PLURALIST SUBJECTIVITY 122 4. Individualism, Interrupted 122 5. Dying Socialist in “Capitalist” Shanghai 157 6. Dying Religious in a Socialist Ritual 183 7. Pluralism, Interrupted 214 CONCLUSION 239 Notes 248 References 254 Index 264 "An ethnography of contemporary urban Chinese death rituals and the Shanghai funeral industry, this book describes how the Chinese Communist Party governed death, how such governance was used to construct specific ideas of persons and citizens, and how such governance has changed after the introduction of market economic reforms"-- Provided by publisher