Consumers and Individuals in China

Breaking new ground in the study of Chinese urban society, this book applies a critical discourse analysis to ethnographic data gathered in Anshan City, a "third-tier" city and market in northeast China. The book confronts the – still widespread – notion that Chinese consumers are not "real" individuals, and in doing so represents an ambitious attempt to give a new twist to the structure versus agency debates in social theory. To this end, Michael B. Griffiths addresses how concepts such as authenticity, knowledge, civil behaviour, sociable character, moral judgement and self-cultivation are generated and function in the contemporary China context.