1st Edition

Maid In China Media, Morality, and the Cultural Politics of Boundaries

By Wanning Sun Copyright 2009
224 Pages 19 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

224 Pages 19 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

224 Pages 19 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Maid in China is the first systematic, book-length investigation of internal rural migration in post-Mao China focused on the day-to-day production and consumption of popular media. Taking the rural maid in the urban home as its point of departure, the book weaves together three years of engaged ethnographic research in Beijing and Shanghai with critical analyses of a diverse array of popular... Read more

1. Intimate stranger: An Introduction  Part 1: Media production  2. Theater of Suzhi: Dramas of New Sociality on Post-Mao Television  3. Spectacles of Love: The Moral Economy of Compassionate Journalism  Part 2: Consumption Practices  4. Morality or Money: The Gendered Ethics of Good Living  5. Latent Geography of the City: The Poetics of Inconspicuous Consumption  Part 3: Everyday Politics  6. Continuum of Transgression: The Practicalities of Everyday Politics  7. The Art of "Making Do": The Cultural Practices of the Subaltern Spectator

Biography

Wanning Sun is  Professor of Chinese media at University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

' A thought-provoking read, this book is recommended for scholars focusing on contemporary China, cultural studies, media, labor, development and gender studies. It could be used in the classroom, particularly at the graduate level, as a fine example of the ethnographic exploration of the intersections of media, marginalization and cultural politics.' - Mei-Ling Ellerman, The Australian National University, The China Journal, No. 63