MCLC: enmeshments of public and private panel--cfp

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Leksa Chmielewski <leksa.chm at gmail.com>
Subject: enmeshments of public and private panel--cfp
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Association for Asian Studies, March 27-30, 2014, Philadelphia
CFP deadline: August 1, 2013

AAS 2014 Panel Proposal: Enmeshments of Public and Private in Chinese Life
and Government: Development, Modernity and Hybridity

In recent years, political and economic modernizing dreams for China have
been complicated by reports of murky enmeshments between government and
non-government entities. The United States has adopted a policy of naming
and shaming Chinese hackers who attack not only government secrets, but
also private intellectual property. Rumors circulate that the blocking of
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accomplishes as much for economic
protectionism as it does for social stability [1]. Official news media
directives seem equally to protect the reputation of the State and those
of corporations faced with scandal [2]. Local governments are critically
funded by commercial real estate ventures. And despite massive layoffs in
the late 1990s and early 2000s, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) show no
sign of fulfilling earlier predictions by diminishing in influence. The
enmeshment of entities which might be considered public or private by
European and American modernization and development discourses is not on
the wane as time passes; rather, such instances seem to emerge as thick
and fast as ever. This panel will consider how and why government and
non-government entities are entwined in contemporary and historical China.

Recent works have considered how certain privatizing processes have come
to prominence in Chinese property, law, healthcare, labor markets and even
cultivation of the self [3]. In focusing explicitly on private and public
as entangled concepts, the separation of the two might echo that between
nature and culture, thus emerging as a distinctly modernist enterprise
[4]. This suggests there may be no radically pristine “third space” of
uncommodified cultural tradition, yet to be carved into public or private
use [5]. These interventions as well as studies of “recombinant” and
“fuzzy” property within postsocialist states [6] open up questions of why
entities and collaborations which are difficult to define either as fully
public or fully private seem to thrive in the contemporary moment despite
developmentalist predictions that they would slowly disappear with time.

This panel is open to diverse contributions from any academic discipline.

Papers might consider:
·         Intellectual property and state and commercial espionage;
·         Government oversight of commercial scandals;
·         Practices or ontologies of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or
NGOs;
·         Local or state-level development schemes;
·         Nontransparency and patron-client relationships between
government and non-government entities;
·         Post-socialism as a category for analysis in China Studies;
·         The history and nature of public goods in China;
·         Academic debates over public spheres and civil societies in
Chinese history or contemporary life;
·         The concepts of “public” and “private” within discourses of
modernity and development;
·         Gender and its rhetorical association with public and private
spheres.

Please submit a 250 word abstract and 200 word bio by August 1, 2013.
Earlier expressions of interest are appreciated. Submit to Leksa
Chmielewski, leksa.chm at gmail.com

Notes
[1] For a recent reference, see Jim Sciutto, July 11, 2013, “China’s
Blackout of US Media Can No Longer Be Ignored,” Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chinas-blackout-of-us-media-can-no-l
onger-be-ignored/2013/07/10/2bdea62e-e7f5-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_story.html
[2] Perry Link, July 10, 2013, “Censoring the News Before It Happens,” The
New York Review of Books,
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/jul/10/censoring-news-before-happ
ens-china/
[3] See, for just a few of many examples, Anagnost 2006, Chen, Clark,
Gottschang and Jeffery 2001, Denton 2005, Greenhalgh 2008, Zhang and Ong
2008
[4] Latour 1986, 1993, 2009; in China Studies, see Farquhar 2010, Rofel
2007, Zhan 2011
[5] Oakes 2009
[6] Stark 1996, Verdery 1997