Introduction: grasping the precarious -- The delegators -- The ragpickers -- The vocalists and the ventriloquists -- The cliffhangers -- The microcelebrities -- Conclusion: viral precarity.
Summary:
"On the Edge probes precarity in contemporary China through the lens of the dark and angry cultural forms that chronic uncertainty has generated since the millennium. Drawing on and expanding from social science work, the only currently available academic treatment of precarity in China, Hillenbrand argues that a substantial minority of Chinese workers-as many as 300 million people-exist in what she calls "zombie citizenship," a state of dehumanizing exile from the law and its safeguards. She further demonstrates that culture is a core space in which this rage and conflict break cover, via a range of aesthetic forms in which different class actors confront one another in postures of antagonism. This friction articulates itself in volatile, break-out cultural forms: suicide shows, brutal performance art, confrontational livestreaming, waste art, and poetry from the Foxconn factory floor. The book's approach is vigorously interdisciplinary, fusing digital media, art history, literary criticism, and performance studies with citizenship, protest, and labor studies. It places both the distinctive Chinese experience and the vital role of culture at the heart of our global understanding of what entrenched insecurity and civic jeopardy do to the bonds of the social contract"-- Provided by publisher.
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.