ABSTRACT
Economic reforms over the past three decades have resulted in profound social stratification in China. In order to fully understand the impact and implications of this change, we must first recognize that inequality, often measured in purely economic terms, is also intrinsically social–spatial. As a result of this social–spatial stratification, there are now many ‘Chinas’ within the nation-state entity that is the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Over the past decade and a half, a group of political scientists, economists, geographers, anthropologists, historians and cultural studies scholars associated with the Provincial China Project have dedicated themselves to examining the processes and consequences of economic reforms and social change at a number of provincial and local levels in China, including village, township, city and province. Although this project, being based at the University of Technology, Sydney, has a distinctive Australian flavour, it has also involved a considerable – and still growing – number of international scholars working on China. Regardless of the designated theme for a given year, the annual Provincial China workshop privileges the concepts of place, space and the local, while paying attention to translocal practices and linkages.
