Book
State-sponsored inequality: the banner system and social stratification in northeast China
Stanford University Press
2017
Abstract
This book explores the social economic processes of inequality in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century rural China. Drawing on uniquely rich source materials, Shuang Chen provides a comprehensive view of the creation of a social hierarchy wherein the state classified immigrants to the Chinese county of Shuangcheng into distinct categories, each associated with different land entitlements. The resulting patterns of wealth stratification and social hierarchy were then simultaneously challenged and reinforced by local people. The tensions built into the unequal land entitlements shaped the identities of immigrant groups, and this social hierarchy persisted even after the institution of unequal state entitlements was removed. State-Sponsored Inequality offers an in-depth understanding of the key factors that contribute to social stratification in agrarian societies. Moreover, it sheds light on the many parallels between the stratification system in nineteenth-century Shuangcheng and structural inequality in contemporary China.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- State-sponsored inequality: the banner system and social stratification in northeast China
- Creators
- Shuang Chen - University of Iowa, History
- Resource Type
- Book
- Table of contents
- Social formation under state domination in modern China : an introduction -- Clearing boundaries : the founding of Shuangcheng society -- Building boundaries : land allocation and population registration -- Consolidating power : banner government and local control -- Community and hierarchy : banner villages -- Reinventing hierarchy : metropolitan bannermen family strategies -- Sustaining hierarchy : wealth stratification -- Social formation in the early Republic.
- ISBN
- 9780804799034; 0804799032
- Publisher
- Stanford University Press; Stanford, California
- Number of pages
- xviii, 342 pages
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2017
- Academic Unit
- History
- Record Identifier
- 9983917994002771
Metrics
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