Chinese citizens are becoming increasingly mobile, both inside China and
abroad, as migrant workers, tourists, and students. China is caught
between perceived benefits and dangers posed by mobility, complicated by
the government's own conflicting impulses to support and discourage it.
Mobility and Cultural Authority in Contemporary China demonstrates this
intricate balance through an in-depth look at patterns of migration and
state response.
Pál Nyíri argues that the loosening of China's
restrictions on internal and international migration, its promotion of
domestic tourism, and its increasingly positive portrayal of migrants
all follow a similar logic in which mobility comes to epitomize a new
and modern China. Yet the loosening of administrative control is
compensated by the imposition of cultural control over how mobility is
represented and how mobile citizens make sense of their new experiences,
as well as by continued restrictions on types of movement that are seen
as undesirable.
With ever-growing popular and academic scrutiny
of the topic of national and international migration, this compact,
engrossing, and timely study is well poised to be read widely by
scholars interested in globalization, nationalization, modernization,
tourism, and modern China.
Pál Nyíri is professor of global
history from an anthropological perspective at the Vrije Universiteit,
Amsterdam. Among his publications are Scenic Spots: Chinese Tourism, the State, and Cultural Authority and, with Joana Breidenbach, Seeing Culture Everywhere, from Genocide to Consumer Habits.
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