Home>Course>[CHES2104] Consumer Culture in Contemporary China>CHES2104

This course offers an overview of China’s consumer culture. Since embarking on its reform and opening-up policy in 1978, China has transformed from a command economy into a market-oriented system and has achieved over three decades of rapid growth. Chinese society has also undergone sweeping socio-cultural changes, from a proletarian culture during the Mao era to a burgeoning consumer culture today.

This course addresses both the historical processes of socio-cultural transformation and major consumer issues in contemporary China. It aims to provide a roadmap for students to develop a critical perspective on China’s consumer culture. At its core, the class explores what it means to belong to a consumer society with “Chinese characteristics.” We begin by introducing the core concerns, arguments, and theoretical approaches associated with consumer culture broadly, with a particular focus on its manifestations in China. After the introductory sessions, we will focus, week by week, on common (and often controversial) consumer issues encountered in everyday life. We will read works covering various consumption experiences, paying special attention to how consumer culture, embedded in the specific economic, political, and socio-cultural milieu of contemporary China, shapes our ways of “being-in-the-world.” We will also examine the detrimental aspects of consumer culture, including its psychological and ethical impacts, as well as issues of class and gender exploitation.

Throughout the course, students are encouraged to reflect on their own consumer values and behaviors, engage in dialogue with existing critiques of China’s consumer culture, and offer their own reflections.

1. What It Means to Be a Consumer in Today’s China: Course Introduction
2. China’s Market Reform and the Emergence of Consumer: A Brief History
3. Why Do You Buy Things You Don’t Need?: Symbolic Value and the Logic of Brands
4. “Desiring-machines”: Social Media, Influencers, and E-Commerce
5. Festivals, Vacations, and “the Society of the Spectacle”
6. “Beauty Is Justice!”?: Gender, Beauty, and Consumption
7. “Home Sweet Home”?: The Chinese “Middle Class” Dream and “Invisible Poverty”
8. Alienation and Emotional Labor in the Age of Consumption
9. Globalization, and “Shanzhai”
10. Free from a Consumer Society? Critiques and Alternatives to Consumerism