The Extraordinary in the Mundane: Family and Forms of Community in China

How do individuals address serious challenges in a context where organized gatherings are subject to strict government control? This book brings together a diverse group of scholars to explore the many ways people in China self-organize and create varied forms of coordination to solve important problems.

Through compelling, detail-rich case studies, The Extraordinary in the Mundane shows that family structures and networks deeply shape these modes of association. Because the public-private dichotomy does not resonate with many people in China, they rely on informal social ties, not formal organizations or state agencies, to confront personal challenges. Chapters present vivid ethnographic portraits that consider both positive and negative aspects of community formation. A woman with an autistic child creates an organization to advocate for inclusion of neurodivergent children in public schools. A trainee in a psychological counseling course finds mutual support among other participants. A boy is taken by his father to an internet addiction treatment camp that aims to restructure family interactions. A woman in her seventies shows off the burial clothes she prepared for herself, to the admiration of a group of friends. Offering a glimpse into the unofficial realities that often remain off the record, this book provides a wide-ranging and timely examination of the varieties of civic action in contemporary China.

Becky Yang Hsu is associate professor of sociology at Georgetown University, where she is also affiliated with the Asian Studies Program and is a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Her most recent book is The Chinese Pursuit of Happiness: Anxieties, Hopes, and Moral Tensions in Everyday Life (coedited with Richard Madsen, 2019).