ABOUT THIS BOOK

Even as China is central to the contemporary global economy, its socialist past continues to shape its capitalist present. This volume's contributors see contemporary China as haunted by the promises of capitalism, the institutional legacy of the Maoist regime, and the spirit of Marxist resistance. China's development does not result from historical imperatives or deliberate economic strategies, but from the effects of discrete practices the contributors call protocols, which stem from an overlapping mix of socialist and capitalist institutional strategies, political procedures, legal regulations, religious rituals, and everyday practices. Analyzing the process of urbanization and the ways marginalized communities and migrant workers are positioned in relation to the transforming social landscape, the contributors show how these protocols constitute the Chinese national imaginary while opening spaces for new emancipatory possibilities. Offering a nuanced theory of contemporary China's hybrid political economy, Ghost Protocol situates China's development at the juncture between the world as experienced and the world as imagined.

Contributors. Yomi Braester, Alexander Des Forges, Kabzung, Rachel Leng, Ralph A. Litzinger, Lisa Rofel, Carlos Rojas, Bryan Tilt, Robin Visser, Biao Xiang, Emily T. Yeh

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Carlos Rojas is Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies; Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies; and Arts of the Moving Image at Duke University. He is the author, editor, and translator of several books, most recently Homesickness: Culture, Contagion, and National Transformation in Modern China.

Ralph A. Litzinger is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University and the author of Other Chinas: The Yao and the Politics of National Belonging, also published by Duke University Press.

REVIEWS

"This book is an invaluable resource for students and scholars in anthropology, sociology, political science, and cultural studies, or for readers interested in post-socialism, China studies, and migration studies in general."

-- Fang Xu Journal of International and Global Studies

"Ghost Protocol is an important volume that is grounded in solid research and that contributes provocative challenges to received wisdom and even to received counterwisdom."

-- Ellen R. Judd American Ethnologist

“Given its multidisciplinary background, [Ghost Protocol] will not only appeal to scholars of Chinese studies, but researchers who wish to be have an informed take on the variety of substantive issues covered as well.”

-- Meisen Wong Asian Journal of Social Science

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction. Specters of Marx, Shades of Mao, and the Ghosts of Global Capital / Carlos Rojas 1

Part I. Urbanization

1. Traces of the Future: Beijing's Politics of Emergence / Yomi Braester 15

2. The Chinese Eco-City and Suburbanization Planning: Case Studies of Tongzhou, Lingang, and Dujiangyan / Robin Visser 36

3. Hegel's Portfolio: Real Estate and Consciousness in Contemporary Shanghai / Alexander Des Forges 62

Part II. Structural Reconfigurations

4. Dams, Displacement, and the Moral Economy in Southwest China / Bryan Tilt 87

5. Slaughter Renunciation in Tibetan Pastoral Areas: Buddhism, Neoliberalism, and the Ironies of Alternative Development / Kabzung and Emily T. Yeh / 109

6. "You've Got to Rely on Yourself . . . and the State!": A Structural Chasm in the Chinese Political Moral Order / Biao Xiang 131

7. Queer Reflections and Recursion in Homoerotic Bildungsroman / Rachel Leng 150

Part III. Migration and Shifting Identities

8. Temporal-Spatial Migration: Workers in Transnational Supply-Chain Factories / Lisa Rofel 167

9. Regimes of Exclusion and Inclusion: Migrant Labor, Education, and Contested Futurities / Ralph Litzinger 191

10. "I Am Great Leap Liu!": Circuits of Labor, Information, and Identity in Contemporary China / Carlos Rojas 205

References 225

Contributors 243

Index 247

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