Middle-class on the Move: Chinese family, gender and culture

Research seminar 5th October 2018

The aim of this seminar is to explore the Chinese middle-class as a central subject of critical and forward-looking research. In so doing, we have invited a distinguished group of scholars to reflect on the making of the Chinese middle-class in conceptual terms as well as the meanings and significances of the middle-class in contemporary China. 

The idea of the Chinese middle-class has been celebrated but also contested in present day China and around the world. The seminar asks what are the appropriate definitions of the Chinese middle-class? Is it a useful research perspective to address or conclude from? And how does the emerging Chinese middle-class look in comparative perspectives? The seminar will widen the scope of most current middle-class research by focusing on class as closely intertwined with lifestyles, family ideals and gendered norms and practices.

The seminar features two leading Chinese study scholars Dr. LI Chunling and Dr. David Goodman as keynotes as well as comparative comments from reputable Danish scholars.  Besides, a team of junior and senior scholars in China studies will discuss their take on the middle-class from various fields of specialisation. All in all the workshop offers a one day space for bolstering questions of class in the intersectional framework of gender, generational changes, lifestyle, consumerism and sustainability.

The seminar is supported by SC Van Fonden

Register for the seminar before October 1st, 2018
Read all the abstracts for the seminar 

PROGRAM

9.00- 9.15 WELCOME by Andreas de Neergaard, pro-dean, Faculty of Social Science

9.15-10.15 KEYNOTE LI Chunling, Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, CASS, Institute of Sociology
Rising Middle Class in China: Growth and Challenge

10.30-11.30 KEYNOTE David Goodman, Professor, China Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Middle Class China: Dreams and Aspirations

11.30- 12.00 COMMENT Comparative Sino-Danish perspectives

Chunrong Liu, associate professor and executive vice-director of the Fudan-European Centre for China Studies

Hanne Petersen, Professor, Head of CECS, Center for European and Comparative Legal Studies and Visiting professor at Gothenburg University                 

12.00-12.45 LUNCH

12.45-13.45 SESSION I: The Middle-class on the Move: Entrepreneurship and legal culture

Yanfang Zhou, Visiting Researcher, CECS, University of Copenhagen
Nora’s Choices under Chinese Marriage Law

Birte Hansen, PhD student, Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University
The rise of the female digital entrepreneur – new middle class vocation

Louise Therese Kofoed Rasmussen, MA student, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen
Chinese legal culture and legitimacy of political power - Belt and Road

14.00-15.00 SESSION II: The Middle-class on the Move: Family and Gender

Michala Hvidt Breengaard, PhD, Project Officer, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen
Doing middle-class mothering                

Lisa Eklund, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Lund University
Social mobility, gender and generation

Peter Abrahamson, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen
Middle classes East and West: Reaching out for the Market to supplement State and Family. The Use of Migrant Domestic Care Workers in East Asia and Latin America.

15.00-15.30 COFFEE BREAK

15.30-16.30 SESSION III: The Middle-class on the Move: Sustainability and new regimes of living  

Wen Xiang, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen
Rising middle-class and sustainable growth in China: Spotlight on regulation of the smart grid

Hilda Rømer Christensen, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen
Smarting but not greening? Mobike as gendered

Cancan Wang, PhD student, Department of Digitalization, Copenhagen Business School & Li Minmin, Professor, Sichuan Fine Art Institutes, Guest Researcher at NIAS, Helsinki
Affordable distinction: Comparison study of middle-class art consumption in China and Denmark

16.30-17.00 PANEL: What is new and what is next?

David Goodman, Professor, China Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University                   

LI Chunling, Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, CASS, Institute of Sociology

18.00-20.00 DINNER at Restaurant Väkst