What is it about?
Drawing upon ethnographic data collected from fieldwork among a reading-based community in a coastal city over 10 years, and Michel Foucault’s notion of the cultivation of an ethical self, the primary aim of this study is to examine three issues: (1) how do middle-class citizens articulate and practise the cultural activities that they advocate?; (2) are their practices simultaneously individualized and totalized in the way that Foucault demonstrates?; and (3) do these internally oriented practices have civic significance?
Featured Image
Why is it important?
This study provides a prime example of an increasing number of loosely organized cultural communities emerging in the urban middle class. Motivation is the main driving force behind the formation of cultural communities by a growing number of ordinary citizens seeking ways to communicate and express their shared concerns, interests, and experiences in their pursuit of a good life.
Perspectives
I hope this article will enhance people's understanding of the changing socio-cultural landscape that is happening day in and day out among ordinary citizens in a neo-liberal context of the Chinese version. Specifically, the article documents the efforts people are making in their pursuit of good life.
Lin Yi
Xiamen University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Individuality, subjectivation, and their civic significance in contemporary China: The cultivation of an ethical self in a cultural community, China Information, September 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0920203x18800877.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
