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Between Mecca and Beijing examines how a community of urban Chinese
Muslims uses consumption to position its members more favorably
within the Chinese government's official paradigm for development.
Residents of the old Muslim district in the ancient Chinese capital
of Xi'an belong to an official minority (the Hui nationality) that
has been classified by the state as "backward" in comparison to
China's majority (Han) population. Though these Hui urbanites, like
the vast majority of Chinese citizens, accept the assumptions about
social evolution upon which such labels are based, they actively
reject the official characterization of themselves as less
civilized and modern than the Han majority.By selectively consuming
goods and adopting fashions they regard as modern and
non-Chinese-which include commodities and styles from both the West
and the Muslim world-these Chinese Muslims seek to demonstrate that
they are capable of modernizing without the guidance or assistance
of the state. In so doing, they challenge one of the fundamental
roles the Chinese Communist government has claimed for itself, that
of guide and purveyor of modernity. Through a detailed study of the
daily life-eating habits, dress styles, housing, marriage and death
rituals, religious practices, education, family organization-of the
Hui inhabitants of Xi'an, the author explores the effects of a
state-sponsored ideology of progress on an urban Chinese Muslim
neighborhood.
Maris Boyd Gillette's groundbreaking study tells the story of
Jingdezhen, China's porcelain capital, from its origins in 1004 in
Song dynasty China to the present day. Gillette explores how
Jingdezhen has been affected by state involvement in porcelain
production, particularly during the long 20th century. She
considers how the Chinese government has consumed, invested in,
taxed and managed the local ceramics industry, and the effects of
this state intervention on ceramists' lives, their local
environment and the nature of the goods they produce. Gillette
traces how Jingdezhen experienced the transition from imperial rule
to state ownership under communism, the changing fortunes of the
ceramics industry in the early 21st century, the decay and decline
that accompanied privatisation, and a revival brought about by an
entrepreneurial culture focusing on the manufacture of
highly-prized 'art porcelain'.
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