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2011年12月 月次レポート（楊殿閣 アメリカ）
Location: Columbia University
Time: December, 2011
Name: Denka Yanagi
ITP Monthly Report
The most exiting season might be December in New York City. It was decorated with millions of tourist and illumination. People on streets were enjoying the coming holiday; Christmas and New Year Day. But students in Columbia campus were still enjoying their study and challenging their final term exam. I have enjoyed a lot of readings recommended by faculty. Indeed, literatures review of three books which are concerned to modern China society.
-Bryan Tilt. 2010. The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China: Environmental Values and Civil Society.
The author takes ethnography method to analyse dilemma between the natural environment and the country development in this book. This study shows the reality of residents' life, economic growth, environmental policy, and civil society in a rural community; the Futian Township in Sichuan province.
-Kellee S. Tsai. 2007. Capitalism Without Democracy: the Private Sector in Contemporary China.
In this book, it focuses on the private entrepreneurs in China. The author distinguishes entrepreneurs' coping strategies into four categories: avoidant, grudgingly acceptant, loyally acceptant, and assertive. She pointed it out as Chinese entrepreneurs are more interested in their business and material interests than in changing the political regime. But only the "assertive" holds direct potential for making democratizing reforms.
-Guobin Yang. 2011. The Power of The Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online.
Professor Yang describes contemporary Chinese civil movements, internet-related struggles, vividly in this book. He points out that technological determinism fails to see the reality of grassroots level and dismisses too easily the daily life of millions of people in their actual engagement and encounters with the Internet. He conceptualizes Chinese online activism and argues power of "netizens" in contemporary China.
Each of the case studies discussed in classes or in articles such as I have mentioned above is strongly and meaningfully linked with a theoretical theory. This is what "I do not seek. I find". Contemporary China, especially after the Open-Market-Policy in 1979, has changed dramatically. Today, nobody can be certain how Chinese society will change even in near future. This dynamic phenomenon has challenged sociological framework and will need a new academic discipline to explain it.