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Consumption, Body Image, and Rural–Urban Apartheid in Contemporary China

Consumption, Body Image, and Rural–Urban Apartheid in Contemporary China This paper investigates how rural migrant bar hostesses in China's contemporary urban settings deploy their marginaUty as a resource and a weapon to debunk derogatory understandings of who they are. Based on research in the city of Dalian, I argue that hostesses struggle within a system of rural–Urban apartheid to forge a new identity, but that their degrees of freedom are sharply curtailed by the economic and political constraints under which they operate. Analysis of hostesses consumption patterns also challenges Daniel Miller's treatment of consumption as individualistic expressive behavior. Hostesses' consumption patterns suggest that their consumption, rather than the product of freely operating, individual imaginations, is directly curtailed by their social position as rural migrant women and sex workers. (Consumption, modernity, sex workers, marginality, urban China) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png City & Society Wiley

Consumption, Body Image, and Rural–Urban Apartheid in Contemporary China

Zheng, Tiantian
City & Society , Volume 15 (2) – Dec 1, 2003
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References (4)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
0893-0465
eISSN
1548-744X
DOI
10.1525/city.2003.15.2.143
Publisher site
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Abstract

This paper investigates how rural migrant bar hostesses in China's contemporary urban settings deploy their marginaUty as a resource and a weapon to debunk derogatory understandings of who they are. Based on research in the city of Dalian, I argue that hostesses struggle within a system of rural–Urban apartheid to forge a new identity, but that their degrees of freedom are sharply curtailed by the economic and political constraints under which they operate. Analysis of hostesses consumption patterns also challenges Daniel Miller's treatment of consumption as individualistic expressive behavior. Hostesses' consumption patterns suggest that their consumption, rather than the product of freely operating, individual imaginations, is directly curtailed by their social position as rural migrant women and sex workers. (Consumption, modernity, sex workers, marginality, urban China)

Journal

City & Society – Wiley

Published: Dec 1, 2003

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