CONTOURS OF AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE CHINESE STATE: POLITICAL STRUCTURE, AGENCY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN RURAL CHINA

Abstract

Anthropologists have long been inclined to view China from the perspective of a state‐society dichotomy. In this model, the inevitable consequence of economic reform is that – especially at the local level – the state must yield more and more of its power to entrepreneurs, foreign investors, non‐state organizations, and local communities. Not only does this approach distort the role of the state in society, but by placing the state above and outside society it also excludes it from the anthropological gaze. This article proposes an anthropology of the Chinese state which does not merely view the state in society, but also investigates the state itself as society. Drawing on fieldwork in northeastern Yunnan province, I illustrate this general point by investigating the changing role of the local state in economic development. This agenda for an anthropology of the Chinese state resonates both with the recent ‘reinvention’ of the subfield of political anthropology with its focus on governmentality, policy, and rights, and with recent calls by political scientists for the development of an interdisciplinary anthropology of the developmental state.

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