Table Of ContentCulture, Mind, and Society
The Book Series of the Society for
Psychological Anthropology
The Society for Psychological Anthropology—a section of the American
Anthropology Association—and Palgrave Macmillan are dedicated to
publishing innovative research in culture and psychology that illuminates
the workings of the human mind within the social, cultural, and political
contexts that shape thought, emotion, and experience. As anthropologists
seek to bridge gaps between ideation and emotion or agency and structure
and as psychologists, psychiatrists, and medical anthropologists search for
ways to engage with cultural meaning and difference, this interdisciplinary
terrain is more active than ever.
Series Editor
Rebecca J. L ester, Department of Anthropology, Washington University,
St. Louis
Editorial Board
Linda Garro, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los
Angeles
CatherineeLutz, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill
Peggy Miller, Departments of Psychology and Speech Communication,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Robert Paul, Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta
Bradd Shore, Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta
CarollWorthman, Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta
Titles in the Series
Adrie Kusserow, American Individualisms: Child Rearing and Social Class
in Three Neighborhoods
Naomi Quinn, editor, Finding Culture in Talk: A Collection of Methods
Anna Mansson McGinty, Becoming Muslim: Western Women’s Conversion
to Islam
Roy D’Andrade, A Study of Personal and Cultural Values: American,
Japanese, and Vietnamese
Steven M. Parish, S ubjectivity and Suffering in American Culture: Possible
Selves
Elizabeth A. Throop, Psychotherapy, American Culture, and Social Policy:
Immoral Individualism
Victoria Katherine Burbank, An Ethnography of Stress: The Social
Determinants of Health in Aboriginal Australia
Karl G. Heider, The Cultural Context of Emotion: Folk Psychology in
West Sumatra
Jeannette Marie Mageo, Dreaming Culture: Meanings, Models, and Power
in U.S. American Dreams
Casey High, Ann Kelly, and Jonathan Mair, The Anthropology of
Ignorance: An Ethnographic Approach
Kevin K. Birth, Objects of Time: How Things Shape Temporality
Andrew B. Kipnis, Chinese Modernity and the Individual Psyche
Chinese Modernity and the
Individual Psyche
Edited by
Andrew B. Kipnis
CHINESEMODERNITYANDTHEINDIVIDUALPSYCHE
Copyright © Andrew B. Kipnis, 2012.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-1-137-26895-2
All rights reserved.
First published in 2012 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-44369-7 ISBN 978-1-137-26896-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137268969
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chinese modernity and the individual psyche / edited by
Andrew B. Kipnis.
p. cm.—(Culture, mind and society)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Ethnopsychology—China. 2. Chinese—Psychology. 3. Social
change—China. 4. China—Social conditions. I. Kipnis, Andrew B.
G N635.C5C46 2012
155.8(cid:2)2—dc23 2012022506
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: December 2012
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Chapter One Introduction: Chinese Modernity and
the Individual Psyche 1
Andrew B. Kipnis
Part I Creative Expression and Senses of Self
Chapter Two Post-70s Artists and the Search for the
Self in China 19
Ling-Yun Tang
Chapter Three “Selling Out” Post Mao: Dance Labor
and the Ethics of Fulfifi llment in Reform
Era China 43
Emily E. Wilcox
Chapter Four The Poetry of Spiritual Homelessness:
A Creative Practice of Coping with
Industrial Alienation 67
Wanning Sun
Part II Female Gender and the Relational Psyche
Chapter Five G ender Role Expectations and Chinese
Mothers’ Aspirations for their Toddler
Daughters’ Future Independence and
Excellence 89
Vanessa L. Fong, Cong Zhang,
Sung won Kim, Hirokazu Yoshikawa,
Niobe Way, Xinyin Chen, Zuhong Lu,
and Huihua Deng
vi Contents
Chapter Six The Intimate Individual: Perspectives from
the Mother–Daughter Relationship in
Urban China 119
Harriet Evans
Chapter Seven Modernization and Women’s Fatalistic
Suicide in Post-Mao Rural China:
A Critique of Durkheim 149
Hyeon Jung Lee
Part III Governing Individual Psyches in
Contemporary China
Chapter Eight Working to be Worthy: Shame and the
Confucian Technology of Governing 169
Delia Q. Lin
Chapter Nine P rivate Lessons and National Formations:
National Hierarchy and the Individual
Psyche in the Marketing of Chinese
Educational Programs 187
Andrew B. Kipnis
Chapter Ten Psychiatric Subjectivity and Cultural
Resistance: Experience and Explanations of
Schizophrenia in Contemporary China 203
Zhiying Ma
List of Contributors 229
Index 231
Illustrations
2.1 Li Jikai, Scenery, 2007 25
2.2 Wei Jia, Discover, 2007 26
2.3 Qiu Xiaofei, Pagoda of the Discarded No. 8, 2008 27
2.4 Cao Fei, My Future is Not a Dream 03, 2006 2 8
2.5 Cao Fei, RMB City, 2008 29
9.1 Eastern Pyramid Preschool 191
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Acknowledgments
This volume grew out of a conference titled “China Inside Out:
Modernity and the Individual Psyche,” held at The Australian
National University (ANU) on August 16–17, 2010. The conference
was generously funded by the ANU China Institute. Tamara Jacka
and I coorganized the conference, and though Jacka had too many
other obligations to be involved in the production and editing of
this volume, her efforts in organizing the conference and comment-
ing on the many papers presented there were crucial to the creation
of this book. Nathan Woolley of the ANU China Institute was of
great assistance in arranging the practical aspects of the conference.
Other participants and discussants at that conference, including
Børge Bakken, Nick Bartlett, Tent Bax, Jenny Chio, Michelle Jester,
Sin Wen Lau, Hsin-tien Liao, Francesca Merlan, Kevin White, Terry
Woronov, and Jie Yang, enlivened our discussion and thus enriched
the creative fermentation that led to this book.
The artists Cao Fei, Li Jikai, Qiu Xiaofei, and Wei Jia, along
with their agents and galleries—Lombard Fried Projects, Schuebbe
Projects, Saamlung, and Star Gallary—have generously granted us
permission to use the images reproduced in chapter two . All copy-
rights remain in their hands (see chapter two for specific credits).
Mary Walta provided able assistance in formatting the chapters and
cleaning up the references, while Darren Boyd helped with the for-
matting of the image in chapter nine .
Thanks also to Janet Dixon Keller who recommended us to
Rebecca Lester, the editor for the Culture, Mind, and Society series
of which this book is a part. Rebecca has been great to work with,
both providing suggestion for the book as a whole and easing our
way through Palgrave Macmillan’s review process. At Palgrave
Macmillan, Robyn Curtis, Desiree Browne, and others have guided
us through many hurdles. The anonymous reviewers for the press
made many useful suggestions.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the funding of an ARC
Discovery Grant DP0984510.
Andrew B. Kipnis,
Canberra, May 2012
