Residency, class, and community in the contemporary Chinese city

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Notes

1. For instance, chengzhongcun was translated to “city-inlaid villages” (p. 111), not to “urban villages”, as is the norm in the English-language literature (e.g., Liu et al. 2010).

2. One might add that the rather ineffectual attempt to disguise the discussed location leaves the reader wondering. “SH” is obviously Shanghai, as can be easily deduced from the numerous footnotes citing Shanghai-based research (e.g., p.41, 56, 61).

3. Unfortunately, this work, too, fails to probe the meaning of its findings. For instance, the class consciousness emphatically related in many of the interviewees responses is striking, but left unchallenged. The question of why this is such an important category of meaning in a formally communist society suggests itself, but remains unaddressed.

4. Somewhat disappointingly, an in-depth discussion of the distinction between guanxi and corruption is conspicuously absent.

5. However, this point has been made (e.g., Huang 1993; White, Howell, and Xiaoyuan 1996).