Includes bibliographical references (pages [263]-281) and index.
Contents:
Cooperation, competition and care: Notes from China's New Rural Cooperative Medical System / Ellen R. Judd. Playing ball: Cooperation and competition in two Chinese primary schools / Anni Kajanus -- The role of xiao in moral reputation management and cooperation in urban China and Taiwan / Désirée Remmert -- Harmony ideology in Chinese families: Cooperating despite unfairness / Magdalena Wong -- Cooperation in funerals in a patrilineal village in Jinmen (Taiwan) / Hsiao-Chiao Chiu -- Memory leaks: Location histories of cooperation as a solution to water-related cooperation problems / Andrea E. Pia -- Care as bureaucratic lubricant: The role of female care workers in an old people's home in rural China / Cecilia Liu -- Reputation, morality and power in an emigrant community (qiaoxiang) in Guangdong Province / Meixuan Chen -- Jiaoqing ethics and the sustainability of non-kin cooperation / Di Wu -- Power, gender and 'network-based cooperation': A study of migrant workers in Shenzhen / I-Chieh Fang -- Challenges to ethnic cooperation among Hong Kong Chinese in Scotland / Eona Bell -- Problems in the new cooperations movement: A window onto changing cooperation mechanisms / Mark Stanford -- Cooperation, competition and care: Notes from China's New Rural Cooperative Medical System / Ellen R. Judd.
Summary:
When humans cooperate, what are the social and psychological mechanisms that enable them to do so successfully? Is cooperativeness something natural for humans, built in to our species over the course of evolution, or rather something that depends on cultural learning and social interaction? This book addresses these central questions concerning human nature and the nature of cooperation. The editors present a wide range of vivid anthropological case-studies focused on everyday cooperation in Chinese communities, for example, between children in Nanjing playing a ballgame; parents in Edinburgh organising a community school; villagers in Yunnan dealing with "common pool" resource problems; and families in Kinmen in Taiwan worshipping their dead together. On the one hand, these case studies illustrate some uniquely Chinese cultural factors, such as those related to kinship ideals and institutions that shape the experience and practice of cooperation. They also illustrate, on the other hand, how China's recent history, not least the rise and fall of collectivism in various forms, continues to shape the experience of cooperation for ordinary people in China today. Finally, they show that in spite of the cultural and historical particularity of Chinese cooperation, it does share some underlying features that would be familiar to people coming from radically different backgrounds.
Series:
London School of Economics monographs on social anthropology ; volume 84
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.