SOAS China Institute Monday Forums
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Date: Monday 21 January 2019
Title: Personal Trust and Stranger Solidarity: Competing Moral Economies of Chinese Organic Farming
Speaker: Associate Prof. Anders Synbrandt Hansen (Aarhus University)
Chair: Dr Jakob Klein (Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology, SOAS, University of London)
Venue: Room G3, Main college building, SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H OXG
Abstract
The widespread phenomenon of unsafe food on the Chinese market has been argued to be both symptomatic of moral disregard for the well-being of strangers, and productive of social distrust. In response to the ongoing food safety crisis some agricultural producers have turned to organic farming, and this seminar discusses the moral reasoning of farmers based on ethnographic fieldwork at one such organic farm in northern China. While the business model of the farm is shown exactly to hinge upon building up personal trust in customers, turning strangers (shengren) into associates (shuren), the entire project of organic farming and attendant visions for the future countryside is undergirded by strong expressions of abstract solidarity with conventional farmers framed in the language of moral economy (Thompson; Scott). Engaging with theories of Chinese relational ethics (Fei; Stafford; Yan), Anders argues that crosscutting solidarities that do not fit the equation of physical and social distance with moral distance make up an important part of the moral landscape of contemporary China.
Biography
Anders Sybrandt Hansen is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and China Studies at Aarhus University specialising in ethnographic research into contemporary Chinese society and culture. He has written on university students’ engagement with the Communist Party of China, on Chinese migrants’ integration with the global capitalist economy, and on the experience of Chinese students abroad. He is currently carrying out a project on food safety, ethics, and market in contemporary China: “Moral Economies of Food in Contemporary China.” His publications include “Guanhua! Beijing Students, Authoritative Discourse and the Ritual Production of Political Compliance” (2017), “The Temporal Experience of Chinese Students Abroad and the Present Human Condition” (2015), “Purity and Corruption: Chinese Communist Party Applicants and the Problem of Evil” (2013) and “Learning the Knacks of Actually Existing Capitalism: Young Beijing Migrants and the Problem of Value” (2012).
Register here:
https://www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/events/21jan2019-personal-trust-and-stranger-solidarity-competing-moral-economies-of-chinese-organic-farmin.html
Forthcoming Forums
11 March 2019
Disability in China: Citizenship, Identity and Culture
Associate Prof. Sarah Dauncey (University of Nottingham)
25 March 2019
From courtship culture to dating culture: China's single child generation and the transformation of the value placed on love
Prof. William Jankowiak (University of Nevada)
10 June 2019
The Transformation of Governance in China: Views of the general public
Associate Prof. Zhenqing Zheng (Tsinghua University)
SCI Monday Forums: https://www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/events/seminars/
Kind regards,
Li-Sa Whittington
Executive Officer, SOAS China Institute
SOAS, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4823 Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/
Office Hours: Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (0930-1600)
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