I give, I'm happy, I mature': the making of middle-class subjectivities in contemporary China

Abstract

China has witnessed a dramatic resurgence of institutionalised practices of charity and philanthropy in the reform period. This rise of the non-profit sector started to take place in the 1980s and 1990s, but it was only in the 2000s - after the Great Sichuan Earthquake of 2008 - that it gained significant public visibility. This paper explores the activities of one of these new ‘forces of compassion’ – Lions Club International - as a window onto the rise of humanitarianism as a powerful force in contemporary China. Recent efforts in anthropology and other human sciences emphasise the increasingly central role played by ethical regimes of charity and compassion in the formation of contemporary subjects and in the legitimation of mounting local and global social inequalities. In this paper, we demonstrate how the making of humanitarian subjects goes hand in hand with the making of different kinds of class-marked ethical subjectivities – and vice-versa. We are as much concerned with the point of view of those engaging, promoting and/or arbitrating the practice of charitable benefaction as with the point of view of those appealing for it and in some cases benefiting from it. Attending closely to the logics of actors and the justifications for their actions, we explore the tensions and contradictions between these various perspectives. These subjectivities are useful to think about the complex status hierarchies of late 21st century capitalist societies including the question of how certain systems of status subordination are integrated within a more general class system of domination.