Practicing Citizenship in Contemporary China

This book examines citizenship as practiced in China today from a variety of angles. Citizenship in Chinaand elsewhere in the Global Southhas often been perceived as either a distorted echo of the real democratic version in Europe and North America, or an orientalized other that defines what citizenship is not. By contrast, this book sees Chinese citizenship as an aspect of a connected modernity that is still unfolding. The book focuses on three key tensions: a state preference for sedentarism and governing citizens in place vs. growing mobility, sometimes facilitated by the state; a perception that state-building and development requires a strong state vs. ideas and practices of participatory citizenship; and submission of the individual to the collective (state, community, village, family, etc.) vs. the rising salience of conceptions of self-development and self-making projects. Examining manifestations of these tensions can contribute to thinking about citizenship beyond China, including the role of the local in forming citizenship orders; how individualization works in the absence of liberal individualism; and how social citizenship is increasingly becoming a reward to good citizens, rather than a mechanism for achieving citizen equality. This book was originally published as a Special Issue of the journal Citizenship Studies.