Decadence and relational freedom among China's gay migrants: Subverting heteronormativity by ‘lying flat’

2021 ◽  
pp. 0920203X2110503
Author(s):  
Jing Gong ◽  
Tingting Liu
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Relational Autonomy ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Urban Migrant ◽  
Upward Social Mobility

Departing from the prevailing, individualist perspective of freedom, emphasizing individuals’ independence and the maximization of self-interest via unconstrained decision-making, this article applies the concepts of practised freedom and relational autonomy to explore the lived experience of Chinese rural-to-urban migrant gay men. Drawing on our ethnographic fieldwork in the ‘urban villages’ (城中村) of South China, we examine the ways in which rural migrant gay men achieve a sense of freedom, which is dependent on rural-to-urban migration, informal manufacturing jobs, and other queer peers, thus demonstrating a certain level of relational autonomy. Our article clearly shows how these men have come to identify as homeless guabi (挂逼, local slang for those who suffer a tragic and mysterious fate) and spend their days wandering, with no interest in stable work or long-term monogamous relationships. Our research offers a first-hand anthropological account of young adults from the rural working classes who prefer to ‘lie flat’ (躺平) – they refuse to strive for upward social mobility because they believe that upward social mobility is unattainable and a factory job too taxing.

scholarly journals The emergence of the global debt society

Focaal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (87) ◽  
pp. 46-60
Author(s):  
Ismael Vaccaro ◽  
Eric Hirsch ◽  
Irene Sabaté
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The North ◽  
Mortgage Crisis ◽  
Upward Social Mobility ◽  
National Economies ◽  
Finance Capitalism

AbstractAs a result of the financialization of household and national economies, indebtedness has become a system of domination shaping the making of contemporary subjects. This sort of governmentality through debt is a multifaceted phenomenon affecting people's economic and political behavior in both the North and the South. Disguised and legitimized by the moral obligation to repay debts, and by promises of upward social mobility (for the working classes in the North) and of development (for the population of the Global South), indebtedness disciplines households and neutralizes political agency under finance capitalism, as our ethnographic examples on the mortgage crisis in Spain and on microfinance in Peru reveal.

scholarly journals Migrant Labour during the Pandemic: A Political Economy Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 001946622110212
Author(s):  
Deepak K. Mishra
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Migrant Labour ◽  
Cheap Labour ◽  
The One

This article aims to analyse the plight of the migrant workers in India during the Covid 19 pandemic from a political economy perspective. While taking note of the disruptions and uncertainties during the drastic lockdown that was announced suddenly, it is argued that the vulnerabilities of the migrant labour force are deeply embedded in the long-term changes in the political economy of development in India. These changes, on the one hand, have resulted in the gradual weakening of state support to the working classes, and on the other, have resulted in the normalisation of ‘cheap labour’ as a legitimate objective of neoliberal capitalist development. Locating the conditions of the migrant working class on the specificities of the manifold restructuring of the Indian economy under neoliberal globalisation, the study attempts to emphasise the structural dimensions of the current crisis faced by the migrant labourers. JEL Codes: J46, J61, O15, O17, P16

scholarly journals By Slow Degrees: Two Centuries of Social Reproduction and Mobility in Britain

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Lambert ◽  
Kenneth Prandy ◽  
Wendy Bottero
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Linear Trend ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
Term Change ◽  
Parental Background ◽  
Long Term Trends

This paper discusses long term trends in patterns of intergenerational social mobility in Britain. We argue that there is convincing empirical evidence of a small but steady linear trend towards increasing social mobility throughout the period 1800-2004. Our conclusions are based upon the construction and analysis of an extended micro-social dataset, which combines records from an historical genealogical study, with responses from 31 sample surveys conducted over the period 1963-2004. There has been much previous study of trends in social mobility, and little consensus on their nature. We argue that this dissension partly results from the very slow pace of change in mobility rates, which makes the time-frame of any comparison crucial, and raises important methodological questions about how long-term change in mobility is best measured. We highlight three methodological difficulties which arise when trying to draw conclusions over mobility trends - concerning the extent of controls for life course effects; the quality of data resources; and the measurement of stratification positions. After constructing a longitudinal dataset which attempts to confront these difficulties, our analyses provide robust evidence which challenges hitherto more popular, politicised claims of declining or unchanging mobility. By contrast, our findings suggest that Britain has moved, and continues to move, steadily towards increasing equality in the relationship between occupational attainment and parental background.

The voice of others: Identity, alterity and gender normativity among gay men in Israel

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erez Levon
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Male Sexuality ◽  
Gay Identity ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Gay Male ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice

AbstractThis article presents an analysis of a slang variety, called oxtšit, as it is described and used by a cohort of gay men in Israel. Unlike many previous analyses of gay slang, I argue that the men described do not use the variety to help construct and affirm an alternative gay identity, but rather that they use it as a form of in-group mockery through which normative and nonnormative articulations of Israeli gay male sexuality are delineated. It is suggested that this discussion has implications for sociolinguistic understandings of “groupness” more broadly, and particularly the relationship between macro-level social categories (like “gay”) and individual lived experience. (Gay slang, Israel, vari-directional voicing, identity/alterity)*

New Arrivals to New York City: Vulnerability to HIV among Urban Migrant Young Gay Men

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (7) ◽  
pp. 2041-2053 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Kobrak ◽  
Rafael Ponce ◽  
Robert Zielony
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
York City ◽  
Urban Migrant ◽  
Young Gay Men

Coördinatie tussen individuen en tussen teams: over het belang van inzicht in sociale dilemma's

2004 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjolein de Best-Waldhober ◽  
Carsten K.W. De Dreu ◽  
Daan van Knippenberg
Keyword(s):  
Term Structure ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
The Other ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
Group Negotiation

Coordination between individuals and between teams: the importance of insight in social dilemmas Coordination between individuals and between teams: the importance of insight in social dilemmas Marjolein de Best-Waldhober, Carsten K.W. De Dreu & Daan van Knippenberg, Gedrag & Organisatie, Volume 17, June 2004, nr. 3, pp. 187-203. In the context of a social dilemma, in which turn taking serves collective outcomes and only in the long run self-interest and personal outcomes, we studied long-term coordination, i.e. the alternation of sacrifice to achieve maximum joint outcomes. In particular, we studied the differences between individuals and dyads (two person groups) in coordination situations. Recent studies that compared individual with group negotiation seem to lead to opposite predictions. One paradigm predicts groups will perform better, because they outweigh individuals cognitively. The other paradigm predicts individuals will perform better, because they tend to have less fear and greed than groups. Results from the current study primarily support the first explanation. Dyads were less influenced by the complexity of the situation structure than individuals, because they have a better understanding of the long term structure of the situation.

The bird dancer and the warrior king: Divergent lived experiences of Tourette syndrome in Bali

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Lemelson ◽  
Annie Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Tourette Syndrome ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
Treatment Modalities ◽  
Visual Anthropology ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Term Outcome ◽  
Long Term Outcome

In the past two decades, ethnographic, epidemiological and interdisciplinary research has robustly established that culture is significant in determining the long-term outcomes of people with neurodevelopmental, neuropsychiatric and mood disorders. Yet these cultural factors are certainly not uniform across discrete individual experiences. Thus, in addition to illustrating meaningful differences for people with neuropsychiatric disorder between different cultures, ethnography should also help detail the variations within a culture. Different subjective experiences or outcomes are not solely due to biographical idiosyncrasies—rather, influential factors arising from the same culture can have different impacts on different people. When taking a holistic and intersectional perspective on lived experience, it is crucial to understand the interaction of these factors for people with neuropsychiatric disorders. This paper teases apart such interactions, utilizing comparative case studies of the disparate subjective experiences and illness trajectories of two Balinese people with Tourette syndrome who exhibit similar symptoms. Based on longitudinal person-centered ethnography integrating clinical, psychological, and visual anthropology, this intersectional approach goes beyond symptom interpretation and treatment modalities to identify gendered embodiment and marital practices as influenced by caste to be significant determinants in subjective experience and long-term outcome.

What Is Peace? Being an Autoethnographic Account of Methodological Musings From the Beach

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 371-380
Author(s):  
Anandam Kavoori
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Peace Studies ◽  
Liminal Space ◽  
Writing Project ◽  
Emotional Process ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Parts

This autoethnographic essay is focused on methodological space of “problematization”—the wrenching intellectual and emotional process (and lived experience) that a scholar goes through before settling into a long-term writing project—in this case travel to different parts of the world, in an attempt to explore the idea and experience of “Peace” in each of those places. Weaving through elements of family memoir, Georgia history, eco-criticism, and Peace Studies (across different sub fields), the essay illuminates the personal and liminal space of methodological engagement before field work.

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