MCLC: Consumers and Individuals reviews

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Michael.Griffiths at tnsglobal.com
Subject: Consumers and Individuals reviews
***********************************************************

Hi MCLC,

 
My book got reviewed at The China Journal and Consumption, Markets and
Cultures recently. I’ll copy the reviews in here.

 
List members may like to know the book is now available in paperback
Format.

 
Best wishes,

 
Mike

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Source: The China Journal

 
Consumers and Individuals in China: Standing Out, Fitting In, by Michael
B. Griffiths. London: Routledge, 2013. xii + 231 pp. ￡85.00/US$135.00
(hardcover), also available as an eBook.

 
I had expected this book, by the Director of Ethnography at the
advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, Greater China, to be a practical guide
to understanding consumer behavior in China. Instead, it is an ambitious
work of theory seeking to understand the nature of Chinese individualism.
The theory is largely superfluous, a matter, in my view, of beating a dead
horse, but the ethnography is extraordinarily good, and makes the book
worth reading.

 
The introduction dismisses an array of previous scholars in different
disciplines to claim the newness and uniqueness of Griffiths’ approach.
His tone is unfortunate; in fact, many anthropologists and sociologists of
China are well aware of the subtleties of Chinese individualism. This book
fits theoretically alongside a range of recent works, such as those of
Yunxiang Yan and Mette Halskov-Hansen.

 
Some management writings today may indeed still fall into the essentialist
error of reading China through a lens of “Eastern collectivism vs. Western
individualism”, but anthropologists and sociologists have for several
decades moved beyond such readings. For such an audience—and, given the
academic tone of the book, this apparently is its audience—Griffiths’
theoretical points no longer need laboring.

 
The introduction should not stop readers from continuing, for most of the
rest of the book is superb in its detailed parsing of Chinese narratives
of self and social striving. The subsequent ethnographic chapters of the
book are based on intensive interviews with a wide array of individuals of
different social backgrounds in Anshan, a third-tier city in northeast
China. These depict in insightful ways (albeit with a certain male
bias—there are many more men than women interviewed) first the different
discourses of social distinction in China (Chapters 2–7) and then how
different social strata in China use these discourses in pursuit of
distinction (Chapters 8–10).

 
The book’s second chapter considers “authenticity”, and the ironically
different implications of the urban and the rural for what authenticity is
taken to mean, in terms, for example, of “coarse grains” and “fine grains”
and their comparative evaluations. The third chapter explores “knowledge”;
Griffiths shows here how the willful contesting of social rules is a “very
necessary form of self-expression in China” (p. 54), explaining unruliness
as a reaction to the ubiquitous presence of rules. The fourth chapter
considers “civility”, with the discussion of how concepts of civility
differ among different generations in China (p. 70) being particularly
interesting. The fifth chapter examines “sociability”, including a lengthy
discussion of drinking style and face, and also a glimpse into how “the
right to pay” is determined in restaurants (p. 90).

 
The sixth chapter, on “morality”, discusses “proximity altruism” (p. 96)
and how it plays out within what appears to be the “increased flexibility
in the moral order” (p. 111) in China today. The seventh chapter,
exploring “personality”, examines the sacrificing of self not just for
others but also for personal achievement. All these chapters analyze a
given discourse, and also show how individuals use these discourses in
different contexts to maintain social distinction and also to justify
themselves. Griffiths’ extensive quotation and parsing of his informants’
words give his analyses considerable persuasiveness.

 
The last three substantive chapters, on migrants, workers and
professionals, are particularly evocative, in their insightful portrayals
of contemporary Chinese social class. This, to me, is where Griffiths’
ethnography especially shines; in individual interviews with his
informants, he is able to engage in meticulous discussions of social
class, while at the same time observing the subtle contradictions in what
his informants tell him.

 
As might be expected, migrants, discussed in Chapter 8, have their dreams
of expressing individuality that may well be crushed by the burdens of
their lowly social position and limited mobility. The workers whom
Griffiths discusses in Chapter 9 make moralistic judgements about those
who don’t work hard and contribute to society, particularly towards the
privileged young who have grown up in an affluent environment that they
themselves never enjoyed; these moral judgements are made in the
continuing effort to maintain and raise one’s social status. The
professionals in Chapter 10 adhere to a range of different attitudes in
line with their social position, and include those who are socially on a
par with Griffiths himself, making for particularly interesting
self-conscious analysis on Griffiths’ part.

 
My only criticism of these final chapters, and indeed, of all the book’s
ethnographic chapters, is that they seem to portray virtually all
discourse as involving class competition and the effort to attain social
distinction. No doubt this is a function of Griffiths’ interview questions
as well as his research endeavor as a whole, but it does convey the
distinct impression of a lack of real individuals and individualism in
China, since all interviewees in common are portrayed as no more than
pawns in the vast game of seeking and maintaining social status. That is,
of course, of great importance in social life, but it certainly does not
encompass all aspects of individuals’ lives in China today.

 
The conclusion suffers from the same problem as the introduction, although
with more clarity and less defensiveness. “Indeed, that tautology—that
identity is produced in the interrelation of structure and agency—runs all
the way through my entire argument: that is the thesis” (p. 199). What
contemporary anthropologist or sociologist of China would ever disagree?
“Chinese individuals are as . . . individually agentive as individual
agents everywhere” (p. 201). Again, who with any knowledge of China would
dispute this? I would recommend that scholars of China skip the
introduction and conclusion, but definitely read the other chapters of
this book, for they offer considerable depth of insight; I would recommend
assigning them to students as well, for their fine and detailed analysis
of Chinese pursuits of social distinction.
 

Gordon Mathews
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
 

=============================================

Source: Consumption, Markets and Cultures

 
Consumers and individuals in China: standing out, fitting in, by Michael
B. Griffiths, London and New York, Routledge, 2013, 231 pp., $51.95
(paperback), ISBN 978-0-415-73683-1

 
For scholars interested in the structures of consumer culture and the
meanings of consumption in non-Western, post-colonial and post-socialist
contexts, it is impossible to underestimate the importance of the case of
China. One of the world’s last-standing socialist nations with a long
history of authoritarian state control over almost every aspect of life,
today’s China fiercely promotes its own market economy and welcomes trade
to the extent that it does not interfere with the political system. China
is undoubtedly the global economic powerhouse of the present and the
future. As well as its formidable production structures and extremely
competitive labour costs, China is home to one of the largest and
fastest-growing consumer markets in the world, and as such has received a
huge amount of attention from Western corporations eager to sell their
services and wares – both luxury and fast-moving – to China’s ever-growing
number of citizens with disposable income. The publication of a book
examining consumer agency and individuality in China is thus both fitting
and timely.

 
Consumers and individuals in China: standing out, fitting in by Michael B.
Griffiths is the latest in a series of titles from Routledge engaging with
the overarching theme of “Chinese Worlds.” The book reports on a six-year
ethnography of Anshan, “a burgeoning ‘third-tier’ city in China’s
northeastern Liaoning Province” (p. ix) with a population of over 3.5
million people, and provides a detailed account of the practices of
everyday life in that city, and the ways in which a wide range of
individuals from different socioeconomic backgrounds give an account of
their lived experiences and sense of agency.

 
Griffiths opens with a bold claim: “my approach directly assaulted the
myth prevailing in large parts of the extant literature that Chinese
individuals are not ‘real’ individuals; that they are not autonomous,
altogether individuated social actors, but rather passive,
‘interdependent’ entities, their identities entirely determined by their
social circumstances.” (p. ix)

 
The book thus sets out to prove that individual agency is as much a part
of Chinese culture as is accepted as a fact in the West, and furthermore
that one way in which this individuality is both exercised and forged is
through consumption. The book certainly delivers on its promise by
providing a huge amount of detail on the ways in which individuals “take
prior cultural constructs and bend them to their will” (p. x) and
skilfully turn “their objective circumstances to their personal advantage”
(p. 198).

 
The book is elegantly organized. After the Introduction, which provides
some context for the ethnography and summarizes the body of literature on
Chinese culture that the book seeks to critique, six thematic chapters
provide insight into how individuality is exercised and created in the
realms of Authenticity, Knowledge, Civility, Sociability, Morality and
Personality. Thereafter, three chapters dealing with Materialism and
Status provide insight into the daily lives, ideas and expressions of self
of three social groups: Migrants, Workers and Professionals.

 
The Authenticity chapter examines the politics of the authentic self, in
terms of self-styling and self-esteem, and to a lesser extent the politics
of commodity genuineness. On the first count, the discussion ranges from
how Chinese women who choose to colour their hair are denigrated as “fake”
and attempting to conceal an “emptiness inside” (p. 26), to discussion of
how brands use authenticity to appeal to customers, e.g. the Jeans West
brand invites individuals to “Be yourself again: Really, its better” (p.
30). Griffiths argues that authenticity of personality is “inherently
unstable process worked out between multiple and distinct agents” (p. 26).
The authenticity of products is treated in quite a limited fashion from
the perspective of shop owners who make claims about the authentic source
of their products, for example in the packaging of food commodities aimed
at middle-class city dwellers as “the authentic rural” (p. 36). For a
country famously awash with fake items, it was somewhat surprising that
the consumption of counterfeit goods received so little treatment in the
chapter.

 
The Knowledge chapter offers insight into how formal versus informal codes
of knowledge are valued in Chinese culture, including the role of
education in claims to self-esteem and status. The chapter also discusses
the links made by informants between education and employability, although
the links of the latter to regimes of consumption is only implied rather
than explicitly mapped out. The chapter argues that “individuals use
knowledge to compete socially” (p. 48), and that this social competition
is structured by certain cultural rules which are exploited in different
ways by individuals. Some, for example, claim that their life experience
and efforts to culturally better themselves is superior to formal
education, while others value university degrees above all else.

 
The Civility chapter concerns “the boundary differentiating the private
self from the social world of others” and maintains “there are diverse and
competing constructions of where this boundary lies” (p. 59). The line
between private and public is explored in the context of home ownership,
which expanded with economic reforms, as well as in a discussion of
certain forms of propriety relating to bodily practices, eating and
hygiene, and how those operate across class and status boundaries. The
chapter concludes that “there is nothing inherently wrong with aspiring to
consume more like Westerners, to be middle class, urban or civil if so
doing means that individuals may become increasingly afforded the prospect
of equal rights” (p. 76).

 
The Sociability chapter discusses material consumption and
self-restraint/self expression in the context of group entertainment
outside of the home (including communal eating and drinking at restaurants
and bars) and the delicacies involved in knowing who thinks they should
pay and when (and whether they have the resources to do so), inviting and
being invited and reciprocation. The chapter argues that far from the
stereotype of the rules of “reciprocal gift-giving,” there are in fact “no
hard and fast rules governing these interactions; rather there are only
regularities and dispositions” (p. 92).

 
In the Morality chapter, the moral dimensions of conspicuous consumption
and the relationship of values to materialism are considered. In China,
claims Griffiths, identity is a “socio-historical product continually
emerging from the judgments people make and the actions they perform” (p.
95) and “moral character is defined through social actions” (p. 96). While
consumption for hedonistic pleasure is considered bad, it is expected that
money will be loaned or given to relatives or close friends who need it
even without their asking. A number of examples are provided of the
“proximity law,” in which help is expected by and offered to those within
the close kinship network or the “in-group” but not to and from strangers.
The chapter also examines the materialities of extra-marital sex, noting
that in China extra-marital sex does not always lead to divorce because of
a strong sense of responsibility for family and children. Some informants
claimed that the Chinese moral order is being undermined by an emphasis on
consuming and the commoditized self. Interestingly, ethical material
practices such as volunteering and giving to charity are discussed only
very briefly.

 
In the Personality chapter, a key theme in the discussion is the
desirability of self-cultivation, through which individuals compete with
one another. The chapter forges a link between the authenticity and
personality discourses, highlighting that some middle-class entrepreneurs
see themselves as more authentic due to their courage to “pioneer the road
out into the mountains in order to explore the original natural” (p. 120).
The chapter reports on how entrepreneurs talk of the immense personal
resources invested into their businesses. It also highlights the
complexities of what conspicuous consumption signals about one’s
personality: “ostentation shows loss of control” but “if ostentation is
expected in your role or position, this is necessary and shows you are in
control” (p. 126).

 
In the first of three chapters to explore the intersections of status and
materialism, the Migrants chapter – perhaps one of the most interesting in
the book – reports on the experiences, feelings and identities of rural
migrant men working in a lamb restaurant. Griffiths obtained access to
these informants by working with them in the kitchen, and as such was able
to learn a great deal about their views on the city, their work, the shift
from rural to urban life and how they exercised their individuality in
their daily lives. The chapter gives some sense of the hardships of life
as a migrant worker, and both the opportunities available and lacking for
those forced by economic circumstance to move from rural to urban areas.

 
Griffiths conveys the personalities and livelihoods of the informants with
a great deal of care and empathy. The migrants interviewed showed not only
an acute awareness of how “everything in the city requires money” (p.
136), but also a great deal of wisdom in exercising their own expenditure.
For example, one informant argued that because “only people with money buy
the real thing” (p. 136), he cannily chose to buy counterfeits of top
brands so as to access that symbolic capital without spending too much.
Also of interest was the migrant attitude to entrepreneurialism:
Griffiths’ informants shared the view that people should always “strive”
to better their circumstances, and that “wealth and luxury consumption are
entirely validated [ . . . ] if the wealth has been earned through
individual skills as opposed to corrupt means” (p. 141). Nevertheless,
acutely aware of their limited economic resources, the migrants also
argued that there is a form of nobility in settling for second best
materially.

 
The chapter on Workers explored the accounts of those who labour (or
laboured) in state-owned enterprises. A common theme of their work ethic
was highlighted: “work hard, contribute to society, understand the value
of money” (p. 160). Another key element to the ways in which workers gave
an account of their life trajectories was to nostalgically refer to
periods in their lives when they needed to “eat bitterness” (p. 161), and
that the ability to do this and withstand material suffering was an
important step in their own socio-economic progress. Interestingly, this
discourse was not present among migrants, who presumably because they are
still in the midst of “eating bitterness” are unable to look back on it
and argue that it was a crucial part of their formation.
 
The chapter also includes some hints at gender dynamics, noting that
workers claim that finding girlfriends is linked directly to wealth and
status, that binary categories are used in order to categorize men as
“wild” and women as “elegant” (p. 169), and that the wives of certain male
informants were stereotyped as shallow and unintellectual: “her reading is
limited to fashion magazines” (p. 156) and “she watches TV a lot” (p.
159). Griffiths notes that women respondents highlighted the importance of
looking “presentable even when poor” (p. 172) and notes that women compete
more in terms of materialism. The chapter concludes with a key insight
into the link between individuality and internality in self-expression,
which is “expressing something from the inside that is individual and
personal through an appearance on the outside” (p. 173).

 
The chapter on Professionals is structured differently to the previous two
chapters, which discuss migrants and workers collectively. The
professionals, on the other hand, are each given separate, individual
profiles and the unique circumstances of their backgrounds, careers and
personal values are each noted in great detail. Again, fascinating gender
dynamics are hinted at, but not fully and explicitly explored. For
example, Griffiths notes that the wives of the couples whom he interviews
are more silent and subservient, participating less vocally in discussions
and always deferring to their husbands. One exception to this is the
character profile of “the new woman” – a career-driven, divorced single
mother under 40 who confidently and vocally claimed her independence and
social position in Chinese society.

 
The book’s conclusion reiterates its key aims, which were to provide a
“grammar for understanding how individuality in China is structured and
generated” (p. 195) and challenging “crude Orientalist categories within
which Chinese consumers are stereotyped in social psychology inspired
management literature” (p. 195). The book certainly succeeds in
demonstrating that Chinese individuals are not over-determined by the
cultural collective and are self-determining. Although set-up in this way
from the outset – as a deconstruction of Western stereotypes about the
Chinese lack of individuality – the West vs. China cultural binary upon
which the book relies can also be critiqued as something of a straw man.
Because the book is written by a Westerner – albeit one who has lived in
China for many years, has a Chinese spouse and speaks, reads and writes
the language fluently – it is to some extent understandable that the West
is very often pulled in to the discussion as a point of comparison.
Griffiths displays a great deal of reflexivity and sensitivity to his own
situation within the research field, and the impact that his own cultural
background may have had upon the ethnographic process and his
relationships with his research participants. However, at times in the
argumentation, there is a sense that aspects of Chinese culture are
discussed anecdotally simply as a counterpoint to “Western culture.”

 
To cite just one example of this, in a discussion of the morality of
extra-marital sex, Griffiths discusses the “reversal of signifiers” which
takes place in Chinese culture. He provides the anecdote of sports car
with the Chinese characters for “devotion” or “loyal” inscribed on the
side, which was spotted outside a university (p. 108). In the West, he
argues, a glossy sports car driven by a young man would signify the
opposite of devotion: the offer of fast love and a “ride with a possibly
illegitimate lover” (p. 108). This “reversal” of the meaning of the sports
car by its owner, who boldly sent a message about how s/he valued loyalty
above all, is analysed only in terms of its difference to the Western
signified (and at that a one-dimensional interpretation of it). The
semiotics of the Chinese student’s sports car could have been analysed
just as productively, perhaps even more so, without relying on its linking
to a Western example, a move that delegitimized that moment of cultural
production and self-expression as merely a “reversal” of Western
signifiers. As such, the book at times misses an opportunity to construct
analysis and theory outside of the West-Rest binary that is arguably taken
for granted in much scholarship coming from the West. Precisely, because
of the importance of researching consumption in non-Western contexts, it
could be argued that scholars working in non-Western contexts should
rather prioritize inventing “theory from the south” (see, for example,
Comaroff and Comaroff 2011; Connell 2007; Mbembe 2001).

 
This minor critique noted, overall the book is certainly an extremely
valuable and important contribution to studies of Chinese consumer
culture. It achieves its aim of providing detailed anthropological insight
into individuality and consumption in China, and thus stands as an
important contrast to marketing literature that is interested primarily in
Chinese consumers as a (mass) market. The qualitative, reflexive and
descriptive approach favoured by Griffiths is certainly more likely to be
an important reference point to any scholars of consumption, media and
culture seeking a deeper insight into everyday life, subjectivity and
consumer agency in contemporary China, for several years to come.
 

Mehita Iqani
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa