ABSTRACT
What does citizenship mean for those at the margins of Chinese society? What can such individuals do to maximize their access to citizenship rights? How do agents of the Chinese state deal with such individuals? Must a minority teenager abandon his ethnic identity in seeking the advantages of assimilation by the cultural majority? Must a family that migrated from the countryside pay the outrageous fees required to place a rural child in an urban public school? Must a farmer abandon local traditions in order to develop a modern agribusiness? Must a Chinese woman marry a man with First World citizenship? Must impoverished migrants from mainland China do volunteer work in Hong Kong? Must neighborhood committee cadres become professional social workers? Must an official value law over morality? How can such strategies help individuals achieve upward mobility? What are the conflicts between such strategies and the efforts of state agents to build and maintain the Chinese state’s citizenship categories?
