Social Influence Network Theory: A Sociological Examination of Small Group Dynamics
Social Influence Network Theory: A Sociological Examination of Small Group Dynamics
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DOI:
10.1177/0094306113491549n
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发表时间:
2013-07
期刊:
影响因子:
--
通讯作者:
Paul T. Munroe
中科院分区:
文献类型:
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作者:
Paul T. Munroe
vince officials and to garner them. We gain insights into the workings of the Chinese bureaucracy, including the prevalent use of graft, as well as the competing logics of blood-based kinship and ethnic ties vis-àvis paper-based ethnic and state membership. Paradoxically, those who fabricate kinship ties, precisely because they manufacture documents to articulate with bureaucratic definitions and guidelines, are more likely to succeed than those who do not need to do so—and hence lack the preparation and the exactitude demanded by bureaucrats. The author allows us to see all sides— Chosŏjok, Han Chinese, and government officials—and their idiosyncratic logics and practices. Beyond the migrants themselves, Freeman delineates the social world not only of the towns and villages the migrants left behind but also the putative homeland in which they find themselves. There is a poignant portrait of Chosŏnjok husband and wives, whose spouses had migrated to South Korea as marriage or labor migrants, consoling themselves in dance halls. Flexible families and flexible marriages become the fate of a community in motion. South Korea too, comes under her analytical gaze. The facile assumption of ethnic solidarity in an ethnically homogeneous country is shattered by the indisputable co-ethnics (as well as ‘‘fake’’ Koreans) who are anything but culturally or even linguistically homogeneous. The consequent disillusionment informs the restrictive and even punitive policy toward co-ethnic migration. Freeman has written a brilliant book that illuminates the complex dynamics not only of South Korea and Northeast Asia but of migration involving ethnic identification and state policy, as well as migrants, families left behind and forged anew, kinship ties claimed and disputed, marriages faked, broken, and made, and the larger world they navigate. For a world in movement, in an age of globalization, she has rightfully conducted fieldwork in many sites over a large landmass, wielding both Korean and Chinese, and in so doing has crafted an exemplary ethnography. It is easily the best ethnography in Korean Studies to appear in some years and is therefore essential reading for anyone seeking to be conversant in Northeast Asia, migration, kinship, gender, family, and globalization. It challenges an unreflexive understanding of these topics—social scientists beyond Asianists and anthropologists would also benefit from reading and pondering it.