Symbolic Capital and the Reproduction of Inequality in Today's China (original) (raw)
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In order to understand the nexus between inequalities, conflict and change in contemporary China, social inequalities should be seen broadly (i.e. include both hierarchy and exclusion), and perceived from social actors' perspective: as those aspects of social hierarchy and division/exclusion which are problematic because they violate the popular sense of justice. This is in line with the theoretical perspective derived from the works of Tocqueville, Durkheim and Weber. According to this perspective, social resentments and antagonisms increase at the time of the economic downturn, especially when this downturn follows the long period of growth, increasing affluence and rising expectations. The most politically consequential aspects of social inequalities in modernizing societies are privileges, discriminations and exclusions; hierarchies of income and authority, by contrast, are typically effectively legitimated by elites. However, the key factor of social stability is the effective management of social inequalities by political elites. Given the effective elite management of inequalities, mass egalitarian mobilizations in China are unlikely. This does not break the nexus between social inequality, conflict and change, but adds an intermediate-and crucial-variable of 'elite management.
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The Chinese State, Incomplete Proletarianization and Structures of Inequality in Two Epochs
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Journal of Urban Affairs, 2018
As China accelerates its urbanization progress, the once homogenous peasant worker group has now become more diversified with the rise of a new generation of peasant workers (NGPWs). Whereas previous literature is preoccupied with making intergenerational comparisons or recounting their marginality, how they become marginalized in the first place continues to be an on-topic area of research. Referring to theories of cultural reproduction and social stigmatization, this study adds to the body of literature by underscoring the often-neglected cultural dimension of marginality. We introduce a temporal dimension in examining NGPWs’ cultural marginality by first tracing back to their pre-urban education process and then unraveling the stigmatization of their cultural identity in cities. Methodologically, it incorporates macro-institutional and micro-individual perspectives, based on both qualitative and quantitative data. We argue that NGPWs’ inferior position in the urban social hierarchy is to a great extent determined by their marginalized cultural capital, which is molded by both institutional education and family education. After NGPWs enter the urban labor market, their identity is further stigmatized by the hegemonic symbol producers. Cultural reproduction is essentially a “group-making” process leading to the “mass production” of NGPWs and class consolidation, and the hegemonic urban discourse system enforces a symbolic construction of their stigmatized cultural identity.
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