Unhomely Life - Modernity, Mobilities and the Making of Home in China

How do Chinas mobile individuals create a sense of home in a rapidly changing world?
 
Unhomely life, different from houselessness, refers to a fluctuating condition between losing home feelings and the search for home -- a prevalent condition in post-Mao China. The faster that Chinese society modernizes, the less individuals feel at home, and the more they yearn for a sense of home. This is the central paradox that Xiaobo Su explores: how mobile individuals--lifestyle migrants and retreat tourists from China's big cities, displaced natives and rural migrants in peripheral China--handle the loss of home and try to experience a homely way of life.
 
In Unhomely Life, Xiaobo Su examines the subjective experiences of mobile individuals to better understand why they experience the loss of home feelings and how they search for home. Integrating extensive empirical data and a robust theoretical framework, the author presents a journey-based critical analysis of "home" under constant making, un-making, and re-making in post-Mao China. Su argues that the making of home is not a solely economic or rational calculation for maximum return, but rather a synthesis of resistance and compromise under the disappointing conditions of modernity.
 
Offering rich insights into the continuity and disruption of China's great transformation, Unhomely Life:
* Develops an original theory of unhomely life that incorporates contemporary research and traditional Chinese ideas of home
* Explores the process of homemaking and its implications for understanding the costs of high-speed economic growth in China
* Analyzes mobile individuals across different genders, ages, ethnicities, social classes, and economic backgrounds to address the balance between meaning and money in everyday life
 
Containing in-depth and sophisticated empirical data collected from 2002 to 2020, Unhomely Life: Modernity, Mobilities, and the Making of Home in China is an invaluable resource for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, lecturers, and academic researchers in cultural studies, migration, tourism, China studies, cultural anthropology, sociology, and social and cultural geography.

List of contents

Preface and Acknowledgments ix
 
Notes on Fieldwork xiv
 
1. Introduction: From Xiangtu China to Unhomely China 1
 
Modernity as a Deal 10
 
Two Dimensions of Uneven Mobilities 15
 
Lijiang Old Town: The Case 19
 
Structure of the Book 27
 
Notes 29
 
2. A Sense of Home in China: Then and Now 31
 
Home: An Ensemble of Representations and Experiences 32
 
A Sense of Home in Traditional Chinese Culture 40
 
Home as a Destination for Return 41
 
Home as a Balanced Way of Living 46
 
Modernization and Loss of Home Feelings in Post- Mao China 50
 
Unhomely Life: An Analytic Framework 59
 
Notes 65
 
3. Lifestyle Migration and the (Un)making of an Ideal Home 68
 
Representing Lijiang as an Ideal Home 70
 
Making Home in its Material and Lived Aspects 75
 
Unmaking Home: The Spatial Politics of Belonging and Alienation 83
 
External Pressure for Home Unmaking 83
 
Internal Struggle between Here and There 86
 
Divergence between Busyness and Slowness 89
 
Conclusion: The Ambivalence of an Ideal Home 92
 
Notes 95
 
4. The Act of Retreat: Tourism, Loafing, and the Consumption of Home 96
 
Solitude and a Natural Way of Living 98
 
Loafing through Socialization 105
 
Regarding Lijiang Old Town as a Home 109
 
Being Unhomely in a Mobile World 113
 
Conclusion 117
 
Notes 119
 
5. Displacing Native Residents: Money, Meaning, and the Remaking of Home 120
 
A Sense of Home in the Town 122
 
A True Love for Courtyard Houses 123
 
A Close- knit Community in the Town 125
 
From Familiar to Strange: In- situ Displacement 129
 
Age Difference: Departure or Stay 134
 
Making and Remaking Home in Daily Life: Four Stories 140
 
Story 1: Making a Home for Tourists 141
 
Story 2: Promoting Naxi Culture for Profit 143
 
Story 3: The Life Cycle of a New Lijiang Local 145
 
Story 4: Being at Home Forever 149
 
Conclusion 153
 
Note 155
 
6. Hometown Babies: Immobility and Lijiang Locals' Struggles for Home 156
 
Speed and Slowness: The Supply of Homely Service to the Old Town 158
 
Guesthouse A'Jie and the Commodification of Domestic Work 158
 
Delivery A'Ge and Time Discipline 161
 
Freelance Workers for Tourists 164
 
Free Time, Away from Lijiang Old Town 166
 
Pain and Joy: Embracing Hometown in Lijiang 169
 
The Shadow of Patriarchal Society 169
 
In Celebration of Hometown Babies 172
 
Stay and Departure: The Longing for Settlement 176
 
Conclusion 182
 
Notes 185
 
7. Homemaking in a Relentless World 186
 
The Politics of Homemaking in Lijiang 188
 
Remembering Home in China: By Whom and for What? 195
 
Being Unhomely in Modern Times 200
 
Notes 205
 
References 206
 
Index 221

About the author

Xiaobo Su is a Professor of Urban and Regional Development in the Department of Geography at the University of Oregon. He is the co-author of The Politics of Heritage Tourism in China: A View from Lijiang and serves on the editorial boards of Geopolitics and Tourism Tribute. His research investigates China's transformation from a planned economy to a market economy, focused on urban and regional development, tourism, migration, urban entrepreneurialism, and border politics.

Summary

How do Chinas mobile individuals create a sense of home in a rapidly changing world?

Unhomely life, different from houselessness, refers to a fluctuating condition between losing home feelings and the search for home -- a prevalent condition in post-Mao China. The faster that Chinese society modernizes, the less individuals feel at home, and the more they yearn for a sense of home. This is the central paradox that Xiaobo Su explores: how mobile individuals--lifestyle migrants and retreat tourists from China's big cities, displaced natives and rural migrants in peripheral China--handle the loss of home and try to experience a homely way of life.

In Unhomely Life, Xiaobo Su examines the subjective experiences of mobile individuals to better understand why they experience the loss of home feelings and how they search for home. Integrating extensive empirical data and a robust theoretical framework, the author presents a journey-based critical analysis of "home" under constant making, un-making, and re-making in post-Mao China. Su argues that the making of home is not a solely economic or rational calculation for maximum return, but rather a synthesis of resistance and compromise under the disappointing conditions of modernity.

Offering rich insights into the continuity and disruption of China's great transformation, Unhomely Life:
* Develops an original theory of unhomely life that incorporates contemporary research and traditional Chinese ideas of home
* Explores the process of homemaking and its implications for understanding the costs of high-speed economic growth in China
* Analyzes mobile individuals across different genders, ages, ethnicities, social classes, and economic backgrounds to address the balance between meaning and money in everyday life

Containing in-depth and sophisticated empirical data collected from 2002 to 2020, Unhomely Life: Modernity, Mobilities, and the Making of Home in China is an invaluable resource for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, lecturers, and academic researchers in cultural studies, migration, tourism, China studies, cultural anthropology, sociology, and social and cultural geography.

Product details

• Authors: Xiaobo Su
• Publisher: Wiley & Sons
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 27.07.2023, delayed
• EAN: 9781394176304
• ISBN: 978-1-394-17630-4
• No. of pages: 256
• Dimensions: 168 mm x 228 mm x 14 mm
• Weight: 364 g
• Series: RGS-IBG Book Series
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geography; Soziologie, Geographie, Sociology, Geography, Stadtsoziologie, Urban Sociology, Geography - Planning, Geographie / Planung, Entwicklungsgeographie, Geography of Development