The Changing Landscape of China's Consumerism
The Changing Landscape of China's Consumerism

Author: Alison Hulme

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2014-07-02

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1780634420

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Consumerism in China has developed rapidly. The Changing Landscape of China's Consumerism looks at the growth of consumerism in China from both a socio-economic and a political/cultural angle. It examines changing trends in consumption in China as well as the impact of these trends on society, and the politics and culture surrounding them. It examines the ways in which, despite needing to "unlock" the spending power of the rural provinces, the Chinese authorities are also keen to maintain certain attitudes towards the Communist Party and socialism "with Chinese Characteristics." Overall, it aims to show that consumerism in China today is both an economic and political phenomenon and one which requires both surrounding political culture and economic trends for its continued establishment. The ways in which this dual relationship both supports and battles with itself are explored through apposite case studies including the use of New Confucianism in the market context, the commodification of Lei Feng, the new Chinese tourist as a diplomatic tool in consumption, the popularity of Shanzhai (fake product) culture, and the conspicuous consumption of China's new middle class. - Provides innovative interdisciplinary research, useful to cultural studies, sociology, Chinese studies, and politics - Examines changes in consumerism from multiple perspectives - Allows both micro and macro insights into consumerism in China by providing specific case studies, while placing these within the context of geo-politics and grand theory

Consumption in China
Consumption in China

Author: LiAnne Yu

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2014-11-05

Total Pages: 179

ISBN-13: 0745684572

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Consumption practices in China have been transformed at an unprecedented pace. Under Mao Zedong, the state controlled nearly all aspects of what people consumed, from everyday necessities to entertainment and the media; today, shoddy state-run stores characterized by a dearth of choices have made way for luxury malls and hypermarkets filled with a multitude of products. Consumption in China explores what it means to be a consumer in the world’s fastest growing economy. LiAnne Yu provides a multi-faceted portrait of the impact of increased consumption on urban spaces, social status, lifestyles, identities, and freedom of expression. The book also examines what is unique and what is universal about how consumer practices in China have developed, investigating the factors that differentiate them from what has been observed among the already mature consumer markets. Behind the often staggering statistics about China are the very human stories that highlight the emotional and social triggers behind consumption. This engaging book is a valuable resource for students, scholars and business professionals interested in a deeper understanding of what motivates China’s consumers, and what challenges they face as more aspects of everyday life become commoditized.

Understanding a Changing China
Understanding a Changing China

Author: Howard Davies

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-08-23

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1315470918

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As China becomes the world’s largest economy, so it becomes important to understand the key issues shaping the country’s business environment and the behaviour of Chinese businesspeople. This is difficult because those issues are contested. Is China growing at 3% or 8%? Is the Chinese consumer going to save the world? Are state-owned enterprises national champions or zombies? Have we reached the end of "Cheap China"? Can China innovate? Is business still dominated by personal connections? Are markets or the state in control? Does Chinese culture impede or support organizational effectiveness? Are Chinese dragons at your door? Will the finance and property sectors implode? Is the Chinese model sustainable, or will it end in tears? On all these issues there is ill-informed "noise", and an abundance of partisan interpretations. The purpose of this book, therefore, is to provide an even-handed analysis of the key issues that will shape the threats and opportunities arising from China’s development in the next decade. It cannot resolve the competing claims made. However, it does provide the reader with the ideas and the sources of evidence needed to understand and to make well thought-out judgments as China continues to evolve.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Consumerism
The Oxford Handbook of Political Consumerism

Author: Magnus Boström

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 953

ISBN-13: 0190629037

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This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.

Asian Mobilities Consumption in a Changing Arctic
Asian Mobilities Consumption in a Changing Arctic

Author: Young-Sook Lee

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-10-20

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1000463257

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This book provides an in-depth examination of the growing Asian tourism market and consumption in Arctic destinations. Through five parts, the book covers Asian mobilities consumption as an extension of Arctic international politics, the transportation sector and green cruise tourism, and ethnicity, culture, and history. It contributes to further understanding of the impacts of increased tourism in these polar regions by exploring climate change, debates around emerging economies and global power roles in the political, socio-economic, security and legal issues of the Arctic and Antarctic and associated polar strategies and policy. By drawing on a range of disciplines and with contributions from experts in Arctic destinations or who are associated with the Arctic, it further provides a holistic framing of emerging demand and mobility patterns of Asian tourists in a polar context. Asian Mobilities Consumption in a Changing Arctic will be valuable reading for students and academics across the fields of tourism, economics, sustainability, development studies as well as other social science disciplines.

Subverting Consumerism
Subverting Consumerism

Author: Robert Crocker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-07-24

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1317281136

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There is now a widespread interest in reuse in many domains, from opera houses built over old warehouses, to vintage clothes and everyday goods incorporating repurposed materials or parts. Despite its ubiquity, this extensive creative work is typically seen in narrowly environmental terms, as a means of reducing carbon, resource use or waste. However, as this volume shows, reuse also has aesthetic and cultural dimensions and a rich social currency, invoked to consciously subvert the accelerated consumer culture responsible for our unfolding environmental crisis. In three parts, the essays in this book consider reuse in terms of values, aesthetics and meaning, its application in contemporary urban and spatial settings, and the revival of social practices involving a more conscious recourse to reuse and repair. These are bookended by the editors' essays: the first, on the significant relationship between reuse and technological and social acceleration evident in the surrounding consumer society; and the last, on the multiple forms of reuse deployed in a contemporary alternative building practice, and their contributions to presenting alternative ways of living in the world. Challenging dominant understandings of ‘waste’ and ‘consumption’, Subverting Consumerism shows how reuse has become a means for many to creatively engage with the past, and to discover a continuity and sense of place eroded by the accelerative regimes of contemporary consumerism. Becoming a means of resistance, and offering a range of aesthetic, social and economic possibilities, reuse can be found to subvert and challenge the obsessive quest for the new found in contemporary consumerism.

Religion and Media in China
Religion and Media in China

Author: Stefania Travagnin

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-11-10

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1317534522

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This volume focuses on the intersection of religion and media in China, bringing interdisciplinary approaches to bear on the role of religion in the lives of individuals and greater shifts within Chinese society in an increasingly media-saturated environment. With case studies focusing on Mainland China (including Tibet), Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as diasporic Chinese communities outside Asia, contributors consider topics including the historical and ideological roots of media representations of religion, expressions of religious faith online and in social media, state intervention (through both censorship and propaganda), religious institutions’ and communities’ use of various forms of media, and the role of the media in relations between online/offline and local/diaspora communities. Chapters engage with the major religious traditions practiced in contemporary China, namely Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Christianity, Islam, and new religious movements. Religion and the Media in China serves as a critical survey of case studies and suggests theoretical and methodological tools for a thorough and systematic study of religion in modern China. Contributors to the volume include historians of religion, sinologists, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, and media and communication scholars. The critical theories that contributors develop around key concepts in religion—such as authority, community, church, ethics, pilgrimage, ritual, text, and practice—contribute to advancing the emerging field of religion and media studies.

Consumer Culture Theory in Asia
Consumer Culture Theory in Asia

Author: Yuko Minowa

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-12-27

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 100053376X

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We live in times of increasing world uncertainty. Consumer culture in Asia has embodied such precariousness, with their unprecedented states of both prosperity and vulnerability. Works in this volume examine the consumer cultures that exist in today’s precarious Asia. They do this through culturally oriented, critical consumer research. How deeply has the consumer precariousness in Asia been intertwined with the sociohistorical patterning of consumption including class, gender, and other social categories? How do these problematics affect consumers’ identity projects, consumer rituals, and marketplace cultures? How is consumer precariousness aggravated by the governmentality of the superpower? How does the changing landscape of inter-Asian and global popular culture impact consumer culture in these nations? Together, the authors in this volume attempt to answer these questions through consumer research within the paradigm known as consumer culture theory (CCT). Since most CCT inquiry has been in Western contexts, this volume augments the existing knowledge. It presents the most current, critical, historical, and material consumer studies focused on Asia. This volume will be of interest to seasoned CCT researchers and academics, for anyone new to CCT, and for postgraduate students interested in CCT or writing a consumer culture-related thesis.

Current Issues in Asian Tourism
Current Issues in Asian Tourism

Author: Chris Cooper

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-06-09

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1000005615

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This comprehensive volume was put together in response to the growing amount of research on tourism in Asia and an increasing number of authors from Asian countries. It concentrates on two aspects of Asian Tourism: first, the Asian tourists themselves, and second, economic development and tourism in the Asian region. The first part of the collection focuses on three areas: the motivations of different types of Asian tourist; the characteristics and behaviour of particular Asian tourist segments; and, finally, an analysis of specific research issues. The second part of the book then goes on to explore the governance and organisation of tourism in the Asian region, and the nature of Asian growth and competitiveness as it relates to tourism. The articles in this book were originally published in the journal Current Issues in Tourism.

China's Changing Trade and the Implications for the CLMV
China's Changing Trade and the Implications for the CLMV

Author: Mr.Koshy Mathai

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2016-09-01

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13: 1475531710

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China’s trade patterns are evolving. While it started in light manufacturing and the assembly of more sophisticated products as part of global supply chains, China is now moving up the value chain, “onshoring” the production of higher-value-added upstream products and moving into more sophisticated downstream products as well. At the same time, with its wages rising, it has started to exit some lower-end, more labor-intensive sectors. These changes are taking place in the broader context of China’s rebalancing—away from exports and toward domestic demand, and within the latter, away from investment and toward consumption—and as a consequence, demand for some commodity imports is slowing, while consumption imports are slowly rising. The evolution of Chinese trade, investment, and consumption patterns offers opportunities and challenges to low-wage, low-income countries, including China’s neighbors in the Mekong region. Cambodia, Lao P.D.R., Myanmar, and Vietnam (the CLMV) are all open economies that are highly integrated with China. Rebalancing in China may mean less of a role for commodity exports from the region, but at the same time, the CLMV’s low labor costs suggest that manufacturing assembly for export could take off as China becomes less competitive, and as China itself demands more consumption items. Labor costs, however, are only part of the story. The CLMV will need to strengthen their infrastructure, education, governance, and trade regimes, and also run sound macro policies in order to capitalize fully on the opportunities presented by China’s transformation. With such policy efforts, the CLMV could see their trade and integration with global supply chains grow dramatically in the coming years.