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

本论文是由一位哈佛大学文化人类学的学生完成的研究项目。 该项目将对中国城市的食物配给和消费做法进行历史和人种学的描述。 它将展示1953-1993年实行的社会主义配给制度演变、发展和转变为后社会主义福利援助计划的过程。 该项目的中心假设是，个人战略颠覆了严格的配给和控制制度，并促进了该制度最终融入市场导向的资本主义经济。 将通过档案研究和深入调查粮食配给的日常做法来检验这一假设。 在项目期间，学生将系统地收集和检查官方统计数据，生活故事和工作历史。对这些数据进行详细的定性和定量分析，将有助于确定定量配给下的每日优惠券交易在多大程度上成为后毛泽东时代中国市场竞争和企业家行为复兴的序幕。 该项目将促进人类学对货币和交换的社会意义的理解，丰富社会主义和后社会主义社会日常生活的现有文献，并为中国社会和经济转型的研究提供新的方法。

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.