20 September 2024, Volume 12 Issue 5

    

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  How Does Sociology Accept“Culture”? The Difference between Cultural Sociology and Cultural Studies

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 5-25.

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  This paper discusses how sociology accepts“culture”. Through reviewing the literature, this paper finds that sociology has never really forgotten culture.However, the acceptance of culture has undergone a disciplinary development from “unconscious”to“conscious”and then to“consciously constructing.”In the “unconscious”stage, culture is merely an adjunct to a grand structured narrative; In the“conscious”stage, sociologists had earlier made their voices heard through scattered participation in cultural studies emerging from Europe, which was accompanied by the collective“cultural turn”of European academia; Then the cultural turn of sociology itself gave birth to the conflict between“cultural sociology”and “cultural studies.”In the“consciously constructing”stage, the emergence of several schools of cultural theory provided excellent theoretical tools for the academic prosperity of cultural sociology and the promotion of the importance of culture.Finally, the paper believes that“cultural sociology”and“cultural studies”are related, but there are obvious differences in the research objects, disciplines, and methods.
  
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  Dual Attention Management: Transformative Cultural Competition in Local Governments

  BU Lianxiu WANG Yijie

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 26-48.

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  The study examines local governments’cultural competition, focusing on strategies and motivation to capture, integrate, and maintain attention. It finds that through“government-enterprise alliances”for external packaging and “government-citizen collaboration”for internal management, local governments continuously capture attention from higher authorities and society. This attention is coordinated and redistributed to sustain a competitive cultural edge. The dual attention management of the local governments yields multiple benefits, forming a “cultural creation-attention acquisition-multiple benefits”model. This study enhances the understanding of local government cultural competition and broadens the scope of tournament theory.
  
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  Craft Consumption and Institutional Individualization:An Analysis of Consumption Practices in the Case of Travel Stamping

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 49-70.

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  Stamping consumption, as an emerging consumption phenomenon, reflects that consumers attach importance to both consumer objects and possession experience and want to personalize the experience as well as prove the authenticity
  through institutionalization. In this paper, we take the practice paradigm as a perspective and introduce Beck’s theory of“institutional individualization”as an analytical framework, arguing that stamping consumption is a consumption practice
  based on the occurrence of personal movement. It occurs through the control of the consumption process by institutionalized consumption tools and finally materialized travel experience by collecting movement markers. Stamping consumption reflects the consumer’s search for certainty in a differentiated tourism context. Further behind the demand for institutionalization is the“self-posed”response to the risks of modernity, and the balance between institutionalization and individualization is a process of debugging the tensions of a new order.
  
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  Affect Theory and Its Ethnographic Application

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 71-87.

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  Affect theory has attracted much attention and discussion in the humanities and social sciences. In anthropological research, the contribution of affect theory lies in its breakthrough of the mind‐body and individual/collective dichotomies in existing studies, its focus on the affect‐emotion gap, and its rejection of over‐rationalist and structuralist analyses. Taking as a case study on the emotional practices of contemporary Chinese youth, this paper attempts to explore the application of affect theory into ethnographic research and how it can open up various possibilities in addressing new, untraditional experiences and better grasp the multiplied, complicated and emerging realities.
  
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  Marcel Granet’s Sociological Reinterpretation of Ancient Chinese Marriage and Kinship

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 88-115.

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  Current research on Granet’s kinship theory often attempts to place him within the lineage centered on Lévi-Strauss, emphasizing his contributions to the universal theory of kinship systems. However, Granet’s work is not confined to a
  “structuralist”interpretation alone. His contributions to kinship theory originate from diverse sources, traditions, and dialogues. Firstly, Granet inherits and surpasses the research tradition established by Durkheim. He continues to investigate the origins of exogamy and the transition of organizations. Secondly，Granet’s examination of kinship should not be divorced from his overarching theoretical framework and research objectives, which involve exploring the transition from kinship organizations based on reciprocity to those based on prestige in feudal societies. Lastly, from a sociological perspective, Granet’s study of kinship is grounded in his reinterpretation and explication of the Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial. This interpretation challenges orthodox Confucian theories, particularly regarding father and son relations,
  and entails a theoretical reconstruction of ancient Chinese kinship relations.
  
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  Market Livelihood Uncertainty Manipulation and Platform Labor Process Governance：A Comparative Study Based on Two  Designated-Driver Platforms

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 116-135.

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  Much of the research literature under the established labor process theory paradigm views platforms as upgraded production organizations. Based on a comparative study of two designated driving platforms, this paper finds that platforms enhance the governance efficacy of the labor process by manipulating the uncertainty of workers’market livelihoods, effectively resolving the uncertainty of labor output faced by capital. On the one hand, the platform tilts the orders based on the workers' daily performance, so that the workers continuously internalize the rules of the platform in the process of obtaining orders over and over again; on the other hand, the platform develops a more stringent management style by virtue of the monopoly of the market livelihood, and the workers are forced to give up the space of autonomy and submit to the management in order to obtain a more secured livelihood. This paper argues that we should return to Marx’s holistic account of the capital cycle and revise the existing analytical framework of labor process theory based on the characteristics of platforms, which straddle the stages of production and circulation and integrate different forms of capital.
  
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  Limited Standardization:The Case of a Haulage Platform in China

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 136-159.

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  How Is Bottom-Up Rural Digital Governance Possible?The Social Process of the Proliferation of a Mini Program as a Case Study

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 160-187.

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   This paper describes in-depth the social process of the transformation of a governance mini program developed by a digital platform enterprise from“zero users”to“high activity”in a village, and attempts to reveal the logic and mechanism of the diffusion of external technologies in local societies without large-scale external mobilization from the perspective of the village. First, the social network and social concepts formed by offline governance have laid a social foundation for online
  governance applets. Secondly, the design of products that are compatible with villages is the technical foundation for the smooth“entry”of digital platforms. Finally,these two foundations need to be activated through two key mechanisms:“government platformization”and“platform agility.”This paper not only conceptualizes the empirical phenomenon of the bottom-up diffusion of external“digital governance platforms”in villages but also breaks through the paradigms of state-centrism and social determinism in the explanation of the mechanism, and brings the independent characteristics of technology and the inter-construction of technology and society back to the center of the analysis, which provides insights on the village governance strategy and the development of platforms and products.
  
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  Inter-Organization Interaction and Power Restructuring: An Institutional Analysis of the“Subdistrict-Level Joint Management Team”during the Command Economy in Shanghai

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 188-210.

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  This study, based on archival materials, takes a close look at the case of the“subdistrict-level joint management team”in Shanghai during the 1960s. It elaborates on the significant role of subdistrict authorities in mobilizing production and daily management, as well as on the enduring tension between tiao and kuai.The research demonstrates that the initial objective of establishing subdistrict-level joint management teams in Shanghai was to incorporate social groups beyond the scope of the planned system into the formal organizational structure. This was done to align the“sociality”of the grassroots with the political rationality of the country. Nevertheless, in practice, subdistrict-level joint management teams encountered constraints due to the influence of tiao-kuai relationships in the administrative context. This led to a divergence between the desired outcomes of economic production and the actual outcomes of social management functions.The heterogeneous incentive structure of various subjects has impeded the efficacy of subdistrict-level joint management teams in organizing and managing non-institutionalized social groups. The study presents the intricate nuances of urban governance in a planned economy. To gain insight into the evolving“state-society”dynamic post-1949, it is essential to examine the intricate interplay between formal hierarchical institutions and social groups. Additionally, it is crucial to recognize how seemingly marginalized groups have constrained and restructured formal institutions and power.
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  Make Everyone Happy:Intergenerational Inheritance, Social Legitimacy, and Charitable Donations of Chinese Private Enterprises

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 211-233.

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  In the past decade, China’s private economy has entered a peak period of intergenerational inheritance, with a large number of private entrepreneurs facing the challenge of passing on their businesses to their children. Drawing upon national survey data of Chinese Private Enterprise Survey in 2016, this article examines the impact of intergenerational inheritance on private enterprises’charitable donations. It finds that the inter-generational inheritance of private enterprises is a complex multi-factor transmission process, and the lack of social legitimacy of the second-generation heirs is crucial to the success of the inheritance. Through charitable donations, private entrepreneurs aim to improve the social image of their heirs and enhance the social recognition of inter-generational inheritance. Compared with their counterparts, larger private enterprises have more political ties, and are located in a more market-oriented environment, always having a greater demand for social legitimacy. Thus intergenerational transmission will have a greater impact on corporate philanthropy. The charitable effect of intergenerational inheritance not only deepens our understanding of the intergenerational inheritance of private enterprises, but also enriches the literature on corporate social responsibility in the Chinese context. Moreover, the findings of this article have some implications for the government to better stimulate private enterprises’charitable potential in the future.
  
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  The Subjective Social Stratification Effect of the Basic Pension Security System: Research Based on CLDS2018 Data

  社会学评论. 2024, 12(5): 234-256.

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  This study investigates the impact of the basic pension security system on the subjective class identification of laborers from the institutionalism theory perspective. The study finds that (1)The basic pension security system has a positive promoting effect on the subjective class identification of laborers; (2)The basic pension security system has a“bottom promoting”effect on the subjective class identification of the laborers in a relatively disadvantaged position; (3)The subjective social stratification effect of the basic pension security system works through reducing laborers’sense of relative deprivation. This study reveals the subjective social stratification effect and latent function of the basic pension security system, and at the same time proves the explanatory power of the institutionalism theory on subjective social stratification.