Re-enchanting Modernity : Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China

Mayfair Yang examines the reemergence of religious life and ritual after decades of enforced secularized life in the coastal city of Wenzhou, showing how local practices of popular religion, Daoism, and Buddhism influence economic development and the structure of civil society. "RE-ENCHANTING MODERNITY is based on over twenty-five years of ethnography in the Chinese coastal city of Wenzhou and the surrounding towns. Combining methods from anthropology, religious studies, and history, author Mayfair Yang traces the reemergence of religious life and ritual following long periods of attempted secularization in China. She shows that rather than being opposed to the massive capitalist growth which has occurred in the Wenzhou region, these religious imaginaries and ritual practices are embedded in and inform economic development. Yang is interested in what motivates the return of these rituals in post-Maoist China and their complex relation to capitalist expansion in the area, one that as might be expected is different than the Weberian model from the west. She examines how gender is re-figured in the contemporary versions of these religious practices, given the changes in gender attitudes in the intervening years. Yang concludes that a scholar's notion of civil society must include religious and quasi-religious institutions - even, as in Wenzhou, when they are describing intensively modernized locations. After an opening placing the book amid current social theory, chapter one gives a brief social history of religious culture and secularization in Wenzhou from the late nineteenth century to the present and discusses Yang's ethnographic experience. Chapter two lays out the dynamic local economy of post-Mao Wenzhou that sets the context for the resurgence of ritual and religious life. The chapters which immediately follow provide ethnographic and historical accounts of different forms of religious and ritual life in contemporary Wenzhou: Popular Religion, Daoism, and Buddhism. Chapter six deals with grassroots-initiated temple organizations and religious associations, which, Yang proposes, represent an indigenous and religious civil society. Chapter seven focuses on the activities of the Wang Lineage revival in Longwan District as an example of other lineage revivals. Men are at the forefront of lineage revival, with its patrilineal descent favoring the birth of sons. Yang discusses the gender dimension of religious revival and the tensions between kinship and religious institutions in terms of gendered agency. Chapter eight addresses rural women's religious agency in spearheading temple reconstruction and launching religious civil society. It explores female agency in Wenzhou-- which is often conservative, modest, and self-sacrificing-- and the crucial role of women in fueling the religious drive. Chapter nine examines the ritualization of "the local" and of "community," and it calls for a broadening of the modern category of "civil society" to accommodate the particular conditions of non-Western, non-urban, and religious cultures. Finally, chapter ten examines how the ritual economy is at the same time a stimulus for, a product of, and a counter-movement to the conventionally understood capitalist market. This book will be of interest in anthropology, religious studies and Asian studies, as well as to theorists interested capitalism's relation to religion"-- Provided by publisher In Re-enchanting Modernity Mayfair Yang examines the resurgence of religious and ritual life after decades of enforced secularization in the coastal area of Wenzhou, China. Drawing on twenty-five years of ethnographic fieldwork, Yang shows how the local practices of popular religion, Daoism, and Buddhism are based in community-oriented grassroots organizations that create spaces for relative local autonomy and self-governance. Central to Wenzhou's religious civil society is what Yang calls a "ritual economy," in which an ethos of generosity is expressed through donations to temples, clerics, ritual events, and charities in exchange for spiritual gain. With these investments in transcendent realms, Yang adopts Georges Bataille's notion of "ritual expenditures" to challenge the idea that rural Wenzhou's economic development can be described in terms of Max Weber's notion of a "Protestant Ethic". Instead, Yang suggests that Wenzhou's ritual economy forges an alternate path to capitalist modernity. From "superstition" to "people's customs" : an ethnographic discovery of key questions in Wenzhou -- The Wenzhou model of rural development in China -- Popular religiosity : deities, spirit mediums, ancestors, ghosts, and Fengshui -- Daoism : ancient gods, boisterous rituals, and hearthside priests -- Buddhist religiosity : the wheel of life, death, and rebirth -- Sprouts of religious civil society : temples, localities, and communities -- The rebirth of the lineage : creative unfolding and multiplicity of forms -- Of mothers, goddesses, and bodhisattvas : patriarchal structures and women's religious agency -- Broadening and pluralizing the modern category of "civil society" : a friendly quarrel with Durkheim -- What's missing in the Wenzhou model? The "ritual economy" and "wasting of wealth"