Books by Elaine Jeffreys
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Prostitution Scandals in China presents an examination of media coverage of prostitution-related ... more Prostitution Scandals in China presents an examination of media coverage of prostitution-related scandals in contemporary China. It demonstrates that the subject of prostitution is not only widely debated, but also that these public discussions have ramifications for some of the key social, legal and political issues affecting citizens of the PRC. Further, this book shows how these public discussions impact on issues as diverse as sexual exploitation, civil rights, government corruption, child and youth protection, policing abuses, and public health.
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China, Sex and Prostitution is a topical and important critique of recent scholarship in China st... more China, Sex and Prostitution is a topical and important critique of recent scholarship in China studies concerning sexuality, prostitution and policing. Jeffrey's arguments are constructed in the form of detailed analysis of a wide range of primary texts, including documents, press reports, police report, and policy and legal pronouncements, and secondary literature in both English and Chinese. The work engages with some key debates in the fields of cultural and gender studies and will be welcomed by scholars in these areas as well as by China specialists, sociologists and anthropologists.
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Edited Books by Elaine Jeffreys
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There’s no question that celebrities these days are some of the most prominent faces of philanthr... more There’s no question that celebrities these days are some of the most prominent faces of philanthropic activity—yet their participation raises questions about efficacy, motivations, and activism overall. This book presents case studies of celebrity philanthropy from around the globe—including such figures as Shakira, Arundhati Roy, Zhang Ziyi, Bono, and Madonna—looking at the tensions between celebrity activism and ground-level work and the relationship between celebrity philanthropy and cultural citizenship.
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Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) embarked on a programme of ‘reform and openness’ in the l... more Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) embarked on a programme of ‘reform and openness’ in the late 1970s, Chinese society has undergone a series of dramatic transformations in almost all realms of social, cultural, economic and political life and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has emerged as a global power. China’s post-1978 transition from ‘socialist plan’ to ‘market socialism’ has also been accompanied by significant shifts in how the practice and objects of government are understood and acted upon.
China’s Governmentalities outlines the nature of these shifts, and contributes to emerging studies of governmentality in non-western and non-liberal settings, by showing how neoliberal discourses on governance, development, education, the environment, community, religion, and sexual health, have been raised in other contexts. In doing so, it opens discussions of governmentality to ‘other worlds’ and the glocal politics of the present.
The book will appeal to scholars from a wide range of disciplines interested in the work of Michel Foucault, neo-liberal strategies of governance, and governmental rationalities in contemporary China.
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Celebrity is a pervasive aspect of everyday life and a growing field of academic inquiry. While t... more Celebrity is a pervasive aspect of everyday life and a growing field of academic inquiry. While there is now a substantial body of literature on celebrity culture in Australia, Europe and the Americas, this is the first book-length exploration of celebrity in China. It examines how international norms of celebrity production interact with those operating in China. The book comprises case studies from popular culture (film, music, dance, literature, internet), official culture (military, political, and moral exemplars) and business celebrities. This breadth provides readers with insights into the ways capitalism and communism converge in the elevation of particular individuals to fame in contemporary China. The book also points to areas where Chinese conceptions of fame and celebrity are unique.
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Elaine Jeffreys explores the issues of sex and sexuality in a non-Western context by examining de... more Elaine Jeffreys explores the issues of sex and sexuality in a non-Western context by examining debates surrounding the emergence of new sexual behaviours, and the appropriate nature of their regulation, in the People's Republic of China. Commissioned from Western and mainland Chinese scholars of sex and sexuality in China, the chapters in this volume are marked by a diversity of subject material and theoretical perspectives, but turn on three related concerns. First, the book situates China’s changing sexual culture and the nature of its governance in the socio-political history of the PRC. Second, it shows how China’s shift to a rule of law has generated conflicting conceptions of citizenship and the associated rights of individuals as sexual citizens. Finally, the book demonstrates that the Chinese state does not operate strictly to repress ‘sex’; it also is implicated in the creation of new spaces for sexual entrepreneurship, expertise and consumption.
This comprehensive study is a valuable resource for scholars in the fields of sexuality studies and post-socialist societies and culture, directly appealing to both East Asia and China specialists.
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Journal articles by Elaine Jeffreys
Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing, 2024
This article examines the philanthropy/marketing interface with reference to celebrity philanthro... more This article examines the philanthropy/marketing interface with reference to celebrity philanthropy, focusing on the American YouTube star, MrBeast, and the Chinese government regulation of celebrities and social media influencers. Celebrity nowadays can refer to film and music stars with international broadcast media visibility and to people who create their own fame through social media and appeals to niche markets/audiences (social media influencers). While the United States of America has historically used tax incentives to encourage elite philanthropy as a matter of individual choice, the Chinese government is regulating the cultural industries to promote and direct celebrity and influencer philanthropy towards government-endorsed development goals. Comparing debates about MrBeast philanthropy with the operation of philanthropy in China highlights different ideas about celebrity/influencer philanthropy and the role it can play in supporting public welfare.
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Modern China, 2022
This article examines the governance of China's entertainment industries using the concept of "in... more This article examines the governance of China's entertainment industries using the concept of "indentured celebrities"-famous people who are obliged to serve as ambassadors for Chinese government advertising and public diplomacy. The article introduces the idea of indentured celebrities in relation to Western sociological understandings of major celebrities as "national power elites," "powerless elites," and cosmopolitan "Big Citizens" who use their mediatized star power to exert unelected, "stateless" political influence. It then examines the expansion since the mid-2000s of regulatory controls over China's entertainment industries. Finally, it explores the "Fan Bingbing tax evasion case," revealing how online public censure, and the associated potential for government action, can coalesce to discipline celebrity behaviors. We conclude that regulatory frameworks and, to a lesser degree, "supervision by public opinion," indenture major celebrities to aid the ruling Chinese Communist Party, while undermining any scope to exert non-governmental political influence as per Western celebrities.
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Economy and Society, 2021
This paper shows how government programs unified under the rubric of 'building socialist spiritua... more This paper shows how government programs unified under the rubric of 'building socialist spiritual civilization' are institutionalizing philanthropy and transforming government practice in China. Spiritual civilization refers to a program of simultaneously advancing China's market economy and socialist culture. Using a governmentality approach, the paper explains how this strategy has been translated into practice through the government-directed establishment of a not-for-profit sector and 'national civilized city' competition aiming to produce modern cities populated by civic-minded citizens. It reveals how civil servants are incentivized to become community-focused social actors by examining new conditions of Communist Party membership and the growth of volunteering in Shenzhen. It concludes that China's governmental authorities are creating, and being shaped by, what liberal political thought describes as the non-governmental arena.
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Journal of Sociology, 2021
This paper analyses trends in Chinese-international marriages and divorces, using Australia, a ma... more This paper analyses trends in Chinese-international marriages and divorces, using Australia, a major migrant-receiving country, as a comparative case study. In exploring the recent rise of 'Chinese-foreign' marriage in the People's Republic of China (PRC), we show that Chinese-international marriage within mainland China is a small, gendered phenomenon that largely involves Chinese women marrying men from other Asian societies. By examining unique data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, we reveal that most marriages involving PRC-born people in contemporary Australia are between two people born in China. But the displacement of Chinese intimate relationships to a non-Asian country results in significant behavioural divergences from couples 'at home', especially regarding prior cohabitation. Marriages solely involving PRC-born couples in Australia are also typically less enduring than marriages to non-Chinese. We argue that these differences underscore the roles of country-specific immigration policies and labour mobility patterns in shaping unpredicted family formation behaviour.
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Anthrozoös, 2020
This paper uses a governmentality approach to examine the political history of human-canine relat... more This paper uses a governmentality approach to examine the political history of human-canine relationships in the People's Republic of China, focusing on the evolution of household dog regulations in Beijing. In doing so, it ties the micropolitics of human-canine relations to transformations in political, economic, and social governance and ways of thinking about and acting on the interactions between human and nonhuman animal species. An examination of successive waves of government regulations reveals a shift from top-down authoritarian approaches to governance toward a greater recognition of (circumscribed) individual responsibility and self-governance, which is emerging under the organizing framework of "social credit." This government-managed rearrangement is contributing to the rise of new understandings of human-canine interactions as co-constitutive relationships based in citizenship rights and obligations.
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Museums and Social Issues, 2018
This paper examines the growing political importance of philanthropy in the People's Republic of ... more This paper examines the growing political importance of philanthropy in the People's Republic of China as presented in the Chinese Charity Museum, probably the only national-level museum in the world to feature permanent exhibits focused solely on the subject of philanthropy. The paper explains why charitable practices, which purportedly flourished in pre-communist China, "disappeared" during the Mao era (1949-1976), and why philanthropy is now a government-endorsed activity. It then examines the state-prescribed role of Chinese museology and the creation of a charity museum in Nantong City, before investigating the socio-political narrative that frames the Nantong collection. It concludes that the museum's "story" simplifies and elides the significant change in forms of philanthropic institutions and practices in contemporary China, relative to their pre-1949 precursors, but yields new insight into how the Chinese Communist Party is recasting philanthropy as an integral part of socialist culture and state-led welfare provision.
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China Quarterly, 2019
This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the development of and public responses... more This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the development of and public responses to celebrity-fronted philanthropy in the People's Republic of China. It explores the extent and nature of celebrity philanthropy with reference to a sample of mainland Chinese celebrities in entertainment and sports. It then draws on interviews conducted with employees of large charities to examine the kinds of links that are being forged between China's not-for-profit sector and commercial organizations managing the work of celebrities. Finally, it analyses the responses to a national survey on celebrity and philanthropy. We conclude that the relationship between China's government, not-for-profit and celebrity sectors is becoming more professionalized and organized. This development reveals how the roles and capacities of government are being reconfigured and expanded, even as it also enhances the scope for action and the influence of new social actors and organizations to address government-led national development issues.
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Environmental Communication, 2018
This paper examines the nexus of coal-government-society relations in present-day China using a g... more This paper examines the nexus of coal-government-society relations in present-day China using a governmentality approach to explore the interactions between policy change, “crisis” management and social action. It outlines the noticeable shift in government rationalities and communication regarding the coal industry in recent years. It then frames this shift within the broader context of government-society relations focusing on public debate regarding the calamitous nature of China’s air pollution and its filtering via the censorship apparatus of the Communist Party-state. Finally, it shows how problems relating to coal extraction and combustion have been taken up at the level of grass-roots protest and philanthropic advocacy. An examination of such activism illustrates the crucial role played by digital media networks in sparking debate on coal-related environmental and health crises, and in pushing an authoritarian government to change national coal and other policies in order to maintain social and political stability.
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This paper provides the first detailed study of the links between celebrity-fan communication net... more This paper provides the first detailed study of the links between celebrity-fan communication networks and philanthropy in the People's Republic of China. It explains how the evolution of the Chinese Internet, and especially the rise of social media, has created new spaces in which fans of entertainment celebrities may be induced to engage with philanthropic causes. It then outlines the history of Chinese fan-driven philanthropic initiatives centred on people who became famous through reality-television popular music competitions. Finally, it offers a case study of the initiatives connected to popstar Li Yuchun, and examines the rationales provided by fans in online forums and interviews for their philanthropic engagement. Critics of celebrity-inspired philanthropy highlight its supposedly inauthentic and passive nature. Yet we find that fans actively exploit the forms of sociality that are provided by celebrity-fan communication networks, both to establish virtual participatory communities and to generate social action in the form of non-government-organised volunteering.
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In March 2012, the Central Committee of China's ruling Communist Party issued the " Suggestions o... more In March 2012, the Central Committee of China's ruling Communist Party issued the " Suggestions on Strengthening Activities to Learn from Lei Feng " – a peace-time soldier who died in an accident in 1962. Lei Feng became a model of socialist citizenship in 1963, when his alleged diary, which celebrates selflessness, class struggle and the inspiring effects of Mao Zedong Thought, was upheld during a national campaign to " Learn from Lei Feng ". Today, China's government is promoting Lei Feng to encourage volunteering. Numerous reports suggest that public reactions to the revived use of Lei Feng are cynical and disbelieving, highlighting the Party-state's recourse to anachronistic propaganda. The paper explores the history and altered nature of Lei Feng's fame and the responses of 415 university students to survey questions about him. Contrary to received wisdom, these responses indicate that he is viewed as a relevant symbol of helping others. The findings call into question the adequacy of the term " propaganda " to describe either the multiple content that comprises the contemporary figure of Lei Feng, or the nature of public service communication campaigns in present-day China.
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Shanghai-born Yao Ming, a retired star player with the American National Basketball Association, ... more Shanghai-born Yao Ming, a retired star player with the American National Basketball Association, is the celebrity face of translocal conservation campaigns to stop the consumption of shark-fin soup in Chinese restaurants worldwide. The standard justification for such communication practices is that they will generate media publicity and save shark populations, by encouraging increasingly affluent Chinese consumers to stop eating a luxury food item based on cruel and unsustainable practices. To date, there has been limited research on the nature of shark-protection campaigns in mainland China, the proclaimed major future market for shark fin. This paper fills that gap. It contends that these campaigns have missed their target, being heavily influenced by communication strategies used in international campaigns and providing incoherent local framing. Declining demand for shark fin demonstrates instead that government austerity measures have had a greater impact on luxury consumption practices, inadvertently highlighting the potential of " authoritarian environmentalism " .
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Books by Elaine Jeffreys
Edited Books by Elaine Jeffreys
China’s Governmentalities outlines the nature of these shifts, and contributes to emerging studies of governmentality in non-western and non-liberal settings, by showing how neoliberal discourses on governance, development, education, the environment, community, religion, and sexual health, have been raised in other contexts. In doing so, it opens discussions of governmentality to ‘other worlds’ and the glocal politics of the present.
The book will appeal to scholars from a wide range of disciplines interested in the work of Michel Foucault, neo-liberal strategies of governance, and governmental rationalities in contemporary China.
This comprehensive study is a valuable resource for scholars in the fields of sexuality studies and post-socialist societies and culture, directly appealing to both East Asia and China specialists.
Journal articles by Elaine Jeffreys
China’s Governmentalities outlines the nature of these shifts, and contributes to emerging studies of governmentality in non-western and non-liberal settings, by showing how neoliberal discourses on governance, development, education, the environment, community, religion, and sexual health, have been raised in other contexts. In doing so, it opens discussions of governmentality to ‘other worlds’ and the glocal politics of the present.
The book will appeal to scholars from a wide range of disciplines interested in the work of Michel Foucault, neo-liberal strategies of governance, and governmental rationalities in contemporary China.
This comprehensive study is a valuable resource for scholars in the fields of sexuality studies and post-socialist societies and culture, directly appealing to both East Asia and China specialists.