The Changing Moral Economy of Ancestor Worship in a Chinese Emigrant
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| Author: |
Eng, K. K.
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| Author Background: |
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| Date |
3/99
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| Type |
Journal
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| Journal Title: |
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
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| Volume/Pages |
23(1) 99-132
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| Publisher |
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| Subject Matter |
Community Development; International; China
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| Population |
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| Pedagogies |
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| Abstract |
Drawing on qualitative data obtained via fieldwork & results of a questionnaire survey
administered to villagers & official cadres (Ns not specified), the reciprocal influences between Anxi County Fujianese, whose families & clans have migrated to Singapore, & their ancestral villages in Fujian, People's Republic of China, are described. The Singaporeans bring wealth & cultural capital to their poor relations in rural China, & their participation is crucial for local socioeconomic development. Besides bringing material support & globalizing values & lifestyles, they also reinvigorate & transform the local religious tradition, which, in turn, reaffirms & even remakes their own ethnic & regional
identity. The complex outcome illustrates the fact that China's social change
under economic reforms & global influence is, in its huge rural core, not merely
a matter of infrastructural, market, & social welfare improvements, but involves
exchange & transformation in meanings of rituals & experiences. Kinship &
religion are not unchanging aspects of the cultural tradition, separate from
programs of modernity; rather, modernity & tradition appear to be inseparable, &
they may reveal that the recipe for effective community projects requires a
vital tie between cultural, social, & interpersonal processes. 1 Appendix, 60
References. Adapted from the source document
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