Description

This essay examines the importance of Chinese nation-building in the contemporary era. Defining nation-building in terms of processes that help to bridge local differences especially but not only when also distinguishing China from the rest the world, I argue that a focus on globalization has masked the importance of Chinese nation-building to contemporary social change. I analyze three very different societal arenas in which national forms of commonality are being constructed: the consolidation of the education system, the expansion of the urban built environment and the spread of the Chinese internet. Though each arena illustrates a very different aspect of the nation-building process, they all result in an increased degree of commonality in lived experience and communicative practice across China.

Dr. Andrew Kipnis is a Senior Fellow in the (CAP) Department of Anthropology at the Australian National University. In addition to Governing Educational Desire (University of Chicago Press, 2011), he is the author of Producing Guanxi: Sentiment, Self and Subculture in a North China Village (Duke University Press, 1997), China and Postsocialist Anthropology: Theorizing Power and Society after Communism (Eastbridge, 2008), and over forty articles and book chapters. With Luigi Tomba, he is co-editor of The China Journal.