Dissertation Research: Food Rationing Practices in Urban China: A View from Shanghai

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This dissertation research project by a cultural anthropology student at Harvard University. The project will develop an historical and ethnographic account of food rationing and consumption practices in urban China. It will demonstrate the process by which a socialist rationing system, in effect from 1953-1993, evolved, developed and transformed into a scheme of post-socialist welfare assistance. The central hypothesis of the project is that individual strategizing subverted a rigid system of rationing and control and facilitated the system's final absorption into a market-oriented, capitalist economy. The hypothesis will be tested through archival research and in-depth investigation of routine practices of food rationing. During the project the student will systematically collect and examine official statistics, life stories and work histories. A detailed analysis of these data, both qualitative and quantitative, will help determine the extent to which everyday transactions in coupons under rationing served as a prologue to the revival of market competition and entrepreneurial behavior in post-Mao China. The project will advance the anthropological understanding of the social meaning of money and exchange, enrich the existing literature on everyday life in socialist and post-socialist societies and contribute a fresh approach to the study of China's social and economic transition.