Open AccessDissertation
Structures of hosting in a south-western Chinese town
TLDR
In this article, the authors focus on the materiality of hospitality situations in an industrial county-level town in south-west China, and its rural peripheries, and demonstrate the movement of structures of habituated hospitality practices from "guest hall" rooms in homes to a plethora of new commercial venues that have emerged in the town during the'reform and opening' period.Abstract:
This thesis focuses on the materiality of hospitality situations in an industrial county- level town in south-west China, and its rural peripheries. Using ethnographic data, it demonstrates the movement of structures of habituated hospitality practices from ‘guest hall’ rooms in homes to a plethora of new commercial venues that have emerged in the town during the ‘reform and opening’ period. The first half of the thesis illustrates how, in the domestic sphere, these layouts serve to create a locale around which the family is both literally and metaphorically arranged, but also as a key site in which the family attempts to manage and control their interactions with non-family guests. In recent years, the expectations that hosting situations should be ever more exuberant in nature (typified by the creation of large amounts of ‘social heat’) has resulted in such gatherings being considered increasingly unsuitable for the home environment, which is progressively being reconceptualised as a location for ‘relaxation’. The second half of the thesis focuses upon the town’s commercial venues, examining both the material environment and social interactions taking place within, to demonstrate the similarities that exist between these spaces and the home’s guest hall. It will be shown that the widespread commodification and de- domestification of hosting situations has brought about a number of changes in the town, including concerns over a lack of co-presence of family members, and an enhanced facility for the creation of socially efficacious relationships that are free of the ties and purview of kin relations. The thesis concludes by proposing the term 'structured hosting' to inform both existing anthropological notions of the home and hospitality, and to extend Bourdieu’s notion of habitus by demonstrating how it can become inscribed upon new social domains.read more
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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Outline of a Theory of Practice
TL;DR: Bourdieu as mentioned in this paper develops a theory of practice which is simultaneously a critique of the methods and postures of social science and a general account of how human action should be understood.
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Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience
TL;DR: In Frame Analysis, the brilliant theorist wrote about the ways in which people determine their answers to the questions What is going on here? and Under what circumstances do we think things are real?.
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The logic of practice
TL;DR: In this article, the Imaginary Anthropology of Subjectivism is described as an "imaginary anthropology of subjectivism" and the social uses of kinship are discussed. And the work of time is discussed.
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The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
TL;DR: In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Emile Durkheim set himself the task of discovering the enduring source of human social identity as discussed by the authors, and investigated what he considered to be the simplest form of documented religion - totemism among the Aborigines of Australia.