Cosmologies of Credit: Transnational Mobility and the Politics of Destination in China

Julie Y. Chu

Published by Duke University Press 2010

Cosmologies of Credit

Transnational Mobility and the Politics of Destination in China

Julie Y. Chu

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393160

Overview
Contents

About this book

An ethnographic account of the logics and regimes of value propelling desires for transnational mobility—largely via human smuggling networks—throughout Fuzhou, China.

Author / Editor information

Julie Y. Chu is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago.

Reviews

“Cosmologies of Credit is a rich ethnography of migration that describes departures rather than arrivals, debts to gods that loom as large as debts to humans, and the lived experience of mobility without movement. Julie Y. Chu provides wonderfully subtle renderings of passionate and painful longings not to be left behind. One of the most astute and beautifully written ethnographies about China, Cosmologies of Credit is a pleasure to read.”—Lisa Rofel, author of Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture

“In this vivid account of Fuzhounese villagers’ strenuous efforts to realize their own cosmopolitan mobility as undocumented, smuggled persons, Julie Y. Chu connects architecture, spirit money, the politics of destination, and the cosmology of value. As she convincingly argues, mobility is the modern feature of modernity, and the real is always in motion.”—Tani Barlow, Rice University

“. . . [A] remarkably rich, sensitive ethnographic account. . . . Chu convincingly challenges conventional conceptions of place and displacement in the social analysis of migration and diaspora.”

-- Jing Shao Asian Anthropology

“Julie Chu's ambitious ethnography provides a captivating description of contemporary Chinese people's desire for mobility. . . . Cosmologies of Credit is daunting in scope and provides numerous insights for scholars interested in contemporary Chinese migration practice. . . . It is a major contribution to the fields both of migration and of China studies, and demonstrates the continued relevance of anthropological approaches to China's place in a globalized era.”

-- Jamie Coates The China Journal

“The contradiction between the desired modern persona and the classically superstitious practices that are deployed to attain it has been noted by other researchers, but its ethnographic elaboration is one of the most interesting aspects of Chu’s book. Cosmologies of Credit enriches our understanding of the meshing between private and state desires of modernity that are so characteristic of today’s China.”

-- Nyíri Pál The China Quarterly

“This is a fine example of how a modern ethnography can be written in a way that informs about people’s lives without attempting to describe everything in a research site. It is also an example of how to write a transnational ethnography that transcends geographical boundaries. Unlike most anthropological works on China or on Chinese overseas which treat each as rather separate, this work links the study of China with the study of Chinese overseas very well.”

-- Tan CheeBeng Journal of Asian Studies

“The study reveals a great deal about the conditions, motivations, and perceptions of the residents of the village with respect to their identities, opportunities, and how movement (especially economic and transnational) fits into their worlds…an important book for social scientists who study immigration, human smuggling, transnational movement, or nonurban society in contemporary China.”

-- Brian J. Nichols Religious Studies Review

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Notes on Orthography and Names Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: Edgy dispositions
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
One. To Be Emplaced: Fuzhounese Migration and the Geography of Desire Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
Two. Stepping Out: Contesting the Moral Career from Peasant to Overseas Chinese Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
Part II. Exits and entrances
Three. Snakeheads and Paper Trails: The Making of Exits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
Four. Bad Subjects: Human Smuggling, Legality, and the Problem of Entrance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
Part III. Debts and Diversions
Five. For Use in Heaven or Hell: The Circulation of the U.S. Dollar among Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	166
Six. Partings and Returns: Gender, Kinship, and the Mediation of Renqing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
Conclusion: When Fortune Flows Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	321

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 360
Illustrations
- Other: 20 illustrations, 1 figure

eBook

Published: December 6, 2010
ISBN: 9780822393160