ABSTRACT

Chapter One China Calling begins outlines the dangers inherent in making any generalisations about China as a topic of study. We begin by introducing and developing ideas within discursive practices about China and set much of the groundwork for the later ethnographic examples in this title. The necessity of this ground work is evident in the problematic of even describing China as ‘communist’ or ‘post-socialist’ as these terms prescribe rather than describe an object of student according to a Western based theoretical lens. Providing an overview of approaches to China, asking where and what is China, how are discourses around China created? Chapter One to identifies our ontological orientation or mode of understanding as Progressive and this gives rise to an economic system where the individuated human is supposed to make rational choices towards maximisation of ends. Implications hold that capitalism and democracy go hand-in-hand and that where one is present the other will naturally arise but this is factually incorrect: markets do not occur naturally, but are a result of government policy and a myriad of social and cultural factors, additionally, democracy is historically contingent. In this manner chapter one outlines the implications of the gaze and how categories are all too easily imposed rather than ethnographic data being considered on its own terms. The chapter concludes by tentatively setting out some ideas for how to proceed, for after all, we still need to speak of others.